A list of important achievements in the field of glioma research!

In this paper, I have compiled many research results to analyze the new progress of scientists in the field of glioma research and learn from you! Photo source: Wikipedia [1] cell Rep: new research reveals the drug target of glioma doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.09.088 recently, researchers from Karolinska Institute in Sweden found 10 potential tumor specific drug targets for glioblastoma Results published in the latest cell reports, the researchers said that the changes related to disease in tumor endovascular endothelial cells have long been considered as a possible clinical target for cancer treatment The proteins expressed only in tumor vascular endothelial cells can be used as targets to attack the blood supply of tumor or target delivery of therapeutic drugs without affecting the normal brain " There are more than 200 different cell types in the human body, each of which has its own function Understanding the differences between these cell types can help us understand how organs work and how cells change in disease Cell identity is determined by specific proteins expressed and can be predicted by measuring protein transcripts found in cells In this study, researchers analyzed samples of human brain tissue and brain tumor glioblastoma, an incurable disease with a high mortality rate 【2】 Nature: it is the first time to find that gliomas form synapses with healthy neurons Doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1563-y in a new study, researchers from Stanford University in the United States confirmed for the first time that serious brain cancer can be integrated into the neural connections of the brain They found that brain tumors called high-grade gliomas synapse with healthy neurons, hijacking electrical signals from healthy neurons, thus promoting their own growth The experiment shows that using the existing antiepileptic drugs to destroy these electrical signals can greatly reduce the growth of human tumor in mice, which provides the first evidence for a new potential treatment of glioma The relevant research results are published in the Nature journal One of the deadliest aspects of high-grade gliomas, the researchers say, is the proliferation of cancer cells into normal brain tissue, allowing the tumor to integrate with healthy brain tissue " She added that the findings help explain why gliomas are so difficult to treat "This is a very subtle type of tumor They are actually integrated into the brain It is "disturbing" to find that tumors connect themselves to the brain Still, she says she is optimistic about what this knowledge means for patients with glioma She said there are several drugs that can treat electrical signal disorders such as epilepsy, which may be useful for glioma "This discovery is really promising," she said We have previously neglected the whole aspect of the disease Now, we have a new way to explore and complement the existing treatment " 【3】 PNAs: the drug doi: 10.1073/pnas.1816626116 Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) scientists have found a compound that can effectively and selectively kill brain glioma stem cells, and it is these cells that make brain glioma deadly The study was published in PNAS recently Scientists from TSRI found that a compound they named ripgbm can kill brain glioma stem cells from patients' tumors The killing effect is 40 times that of temozolomide, the standard treatment drug for brain glioma They also found that ripgbm is highly selective and does not kill other kinds of brain cells, while significantly inhibiting the growth of gliomas in mice "Our findings provide a promising new approach for the treatment of gliomas." Dr Luke lairson, an associate professor of chemistry at TSRI and a corresponding author of the study, said Every year, 10000 people in the United States are diagnosed with glioma, which is difficult to treat The median survival time after diagnosis is only one year 【4】 Cancer cell: finding the fatal weakness of glioma doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2019.01.020 Researchers from the Cancer Research Institute of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) found that inhibiting the activity of a special protein in glioma can increase the sensitivity of glioma to radiotherapy, so as to improve the treatment of glioma, the most common and malignant brain cancer Relevant research results were recently published in the journal Cancer cell Glioma is very difficult to treat, the median survival time is only 15-16 months Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the standard treatment methods, both aiming to damage and destroy the DNA of tumor cells, but their therapeutic effect will decline with the resistance of tumor In this new study, Frank B Furnari, Professor of Pathology, College of medicine, UCSD (corresponding author), Dr Jianhui Ma, postdoctoral researcher (first author), and his colleagues found a new mechanism for glioma to promote resistance to treatment: phosphorylation of homologous phosphatase and tensin homology (PTEN), which is encoded by PTEN gene 【5】 Nat Med: study reveals the molecular mechanism of whether glioma responds to immunosuppressive checkpoint inhibitors doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0349-y although immunosuppressive checkpoint inhibitors have been successfully used to treat a series of tumors However, their therapeutic effect on glioma is not significant and can not be predicted At the same time, only less than 10% of patients can have long-term response To understand the determinants of the response of patients with gliomas to immunosuppressive checkpoint inhibitors Researchers from Columbia University tracked 66 patients with glioma treated with standard PD-1 inhibitors (nivolumab or pembrolizumab), including 17 with long-term response Genomic and transcriptome analysis showed that PTEN mutations associated with immunosuppressive signal expression increased significantly in unresponsive tumors, and tumor cells carrying PTEN mutations were more closely connected with each other, preventing immune cells from infiltrating into tumor and tumor microenvironment On the contrary, MAPK signaling pathway (PTPN11, BRAF) mutations were more frequent in the tumor of responders "These mutations existed before patients were treated with PD-1 inhibitors, so testing for these mutations may provide biomarkers that predict whether patients will respond to immunotherapy." Fabio M Iwamoto, Ph.D., a professor of neurooncology at Columbia University and the author of the study At the same time, the researchers also found that the responsive tumors were related to the elimination of tumor epitopes, the diversity of T cell clones and the bifurcation of evolution patterns caused by tumor microenvironment Photo source: Wikimedia [6] NAT Med: good news for glioma patients! Preoperative immunotherapy will double the survival time! Doi: 10.1038/s41591-018-0337-7 a UCLA led study found that for patients with recurrent gliomas, immunotherapy before surgery was more effective than after surgery In recent years, immunotherapy drugs (drugs that can activate the immune system and destroy cancer cells) have been proved to be effective in the treatment of advanced and metastatic cancer But the drugs haven't shown any signs of helping people with gliomas, a malignant and deadly form of brain cancer On average, most patients with recurrent gliomas live only 6 to 9 months The study, led by Robert PRINS, Professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, David Geffen School of medicine, UCLA, and Timothy cloughesy, Professor of neurooncology, was recently published in the journal Nature Medicine Both professors are scientists at UCLA's Jonsson comprehensive cancer center This study is the first to find that the immunosuppressive drug pemumab can effectively treat patients with recurrent gliomas In this study, patients who received pre-operative medication had an average survival time of twice that of patients who received post-operative medication Pemumab is an antibody that inhibits the immune checkpoint protein PD-1, which prevents T cells from attacking cancer cells Cancer cells usually use PD-1 to disable T cells But using drugs like pemumab to inhibit PD-1 can activate the immune system to better attack cancer cells 【7】 Can-18-1304 Wnt / β - catenin signaling pathway is a highly conserved signaling pathway, which plays an important role in early development, organ formation, tissue regeneration and other physiological processes of animal embryos The abnormal activation of this signal pathway is a key driver of tumor development, but the hidden mechanism of tumor formation caused by this abnormal activation has not been fully revealed Recently, Suyun Huang, a Chinese scholar from MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States, found that the abnormality of β - Catenin / usp1 / EZH2 signal regulatory axis is the key factor leading to the formation of glioma The results were published in the international academic journal Cancer Research In this study, the researchers found that the β - catenin signaling pathway plays a key role in stabilizing EZH2 and controlling EZH2 mediated gene expression during tumorigenesis β - Catenin / Tcf4 can activate the transcription of ubiquitinase usp1, while usp1 can interact with EZH2 directly and depubiquitinate EZH2 The stability of EZH2 mediated by usp1 can promote its recruitment to CDKN1B, RUNX3 and Hoxa5 promoters, enhance the level of histone H3K27me3 and inhibit the expression of target genes 【8】 SCI Rep: Chinese scholars have found a new target of anti-cancer, controlling the life gate of glioma! Doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-31864-x researchers from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute (vtcri) say a gene involved in human biological rhythms may be a potential therapeutic target for a deadly glioma The new discovery, published in scientific reports recently, is called "casein kind 1 epsilon regulations glioblastoma cell survival" The study points out that a special gene can obviously maintain the survival of tumor cells, although the gene is usually related to biological rhythm The world is sparing no effort to find a way to treat gliomas, but no one has found that this gene is one of the target genes for the treatment of gliomas "We have found that inhibition of this gene may inhibit the ability of tumor stem cells to self renew and differentiate into glioma cells, which are considered to be one of the characteristics of such intractable cancers." Said Sheng "Although more research is needed before a new treatment can be designed, our early basic research is promising." 【9】 PNAs: targeted therapy for glioma doi: 10.1073/pnas.1805751115 glioma is a kind of brain cancer, the treatment of which is often surgical resection with radiotherapy or chemotherapy Although the combination therapy can make patients live for 10 years, it still can not completely eliminate cancer cells Recently, researchers from MIT and other institutions hope to deliver a class of drugs directly to the brain to prolong the life of patients Common mutations in glioma cells targeted by these drugs (25%)