The Importance of Tumor Stem Cells in Glioblastoma Resistance to Therapy

Glioblastoma (GBM) is known to be the most common and lethal primary malignant brain tumor. Therapies against this neoplasia have a high percentage of failure, associated with the survival of self-renewing glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs), which repopulate treated tumors. In addition, despite new radi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of molecular sciences 2021-04, Vol.22 (8), p.3863
Main Authors: Mattei, Vincenzo, Santilli, Francesca, Martellucci, Stefano, Delle Monache, Simona, Fabrizi, Jessica, Colapietro, Alessandro, Angelucci, Adriano, Festuccia, Claudio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angiogenesis
Brain cancer
Brain tumors
cancer stem cells
Cancer therapies
Cell proliferation
Evolution & development
Gene expression
Glioblastoma
glioblastoma stem cells
glioblastoma stem cells and therapy resistance
glioblastoma therapy resistance
Growth factors
Heterogeneity
Hypoxia
Invasiveness
Kinases
Liver cancer
Medical prognosis
Mutation
new drugs in the treatment of glioblastoma stem cells
Phenotypes
Propagation
Radiation therapy
Review
Signal transduction
Stem cells
Survival
Tumors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Glioblastoma (GBM) is known to be the most common and lethal primary malignant brain tumor. Therapies against this neoplasia have a high percentage of failure, associated with the survival of self-renewing glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs), which repopulate treated tumors. In addition, despite new radical surgery protocols and the introduction of new anticancer drugs, protocols for treatment, and technical advances in radiotherapy, no significant improvement in the survival rate for GBMs has been realized. Thus, novel antitarget therapies could be used in conjunction with standard radiochemotherapy approaches. Targeted therapy, indeed, may address specific targets that play an essential role in the proliferation, survival, and invasiveness of GBM cells, including numerous molecules involved in signal transduction pathways. Significant cellular heterogeneity and the hierarchy with GSCs showing a therapy-resistant phenotype could explain tumor recurrence and local invasiveness and, therefore, may be a target for new therapies. Therefore, the forced differentiation of GSCs may be a promising new approach in GBM treatment. This article provides an updated review of the current standard and experimental therapies for GBM, as well as an overview of the molecular characteristics of GSCs, the mechanisms that activate resistance to current treatments, and a new antitumor strategy for treating GSCs for use as therapy.
ISSN:1422-0067
1661-6596
1422-0067
DOI:10.3390/ijms22083863