New Insights in the Genetics and Genomics of Adrenocortical Tumors and Pheochromocytomas

Dear Colleagues,

Adrenal tumors are common and are often incidentally discovered during imaging (adrenal incidentalomas). Most of the adrenal tumors are indolent hormonally inactive tumors of adrenocortical origin, but hormonally active adrenocortical tumors (primary aldosteronism, Cushing-syndrome), adrenomedullary pheochromocytomas, and adrenocortical cancer have significant morbidity and mortality.

Pheochromocytomas are rare, but exceptional germ-line genetic mutations are found in 30–40% of cases, and somatic mutations are also important. Several novel genes and pathomechanisms have been established in recent years in their pathogenesis.

Major advances have taken also place in our understanding of the genetics of primary aldosteronism and adrenal Cushing’s syndrome. Rare monogenic tumor syndromes (e.g., Li–Fraumeni and Beckwith–Wiedemann syndromes) are known to predispose patients to adrenocortical cancer, and understanding their pathogenesis is important to decipher the pathogenesis of their sporadic counterparts.

Recent studies using high-throughput bioinformatics approaches have contributed to significant progress in genomics and epigenomics of adrenal tumors that involve both the analysis of transcriptome, methylome, miRnome and other non-coding RNA. Novel biomarkers of adrenal malignancy and tumor classification can be developed based on these observations.

The Special Issue aims to cover several aspects of both adrenocortical tumors and pheochromocytomas involving advances in both genetics and epi/genomics.

Prof. Dr. Peter Igaz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.