Cell Rep: a new drug target for glioma

November 8, 2019 / BIOON / -- recently, researchers from Karolinska Institute in Sweden found 10 potential tumor specific drug targets for glioblastoma The results were published recently in the journal Cell reports Lynn Butler, associate professor, Department of molecular medicine, the author of the paper, said: "we have found that the changes related to diseases 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 The available data from transcripts from the entire human brain tissue are of limited use because these samples contain many different brain cell types Now researchers have developed a new way to process this data and recognize transcripts that are only expressed in certain types of brain cells It has been proved that this method can be used to define cell type characteristics and directly compare cell types between normal and diseased tissues Using this method, the researchers predicted 10 new glioblastoma specific endothelial transcripts that could not be found in the vascular system of normal brain tissue "These markers can provide new insights into the biology of glioblastoma and help identify potential tumor specific therapeutic targets," Lynn Butler said Information sources: potential drug targets for glioblastoma identified original sources: Philip dusart, BJ ö RN Mikael Hallstr ö m, Thomas Renn é, Jacob odeberg, Mathias Uhl é n, Lynn Marie Butler A systems based map of human brain cell type enriched genes and malignancy associated ultimate changes Cell reports, 2019; 29 (6): 1690 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.09.088