The tumour microenvironment, treatment resistance and recurrence in glioblastoma

The adaptability of glioblastoma (GBM) cells, encouraged by complex interactions with the tumour microenvironment (TME), currently renders GBM an incurable cancer. Despite intensive research, with many clinical trials, GBM patients rely on standard treatments including surgery followed by radiation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of translational medicine 2024-06, Vol.22 (1), p.540-14
Main Authors: White, Jasmine, White, Madeleine P J, Wickremesekera, Agadha, Peng, Lifeng, Gray, Clint
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Brain Neoplasms - pathology
Brain Neoplasms - therapy
Cancer
Care and treatment
Chemotherapy
Diagnosis
Drug resistance
Drug Resistance, Neoplasm
Glioblastoma - pathology
Glioblastoma - therapy
Glioblastoma multiforme
Humans
Immunotherapy
Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - pathology
Neurons
Oncology, Experimental
Patient outcomes
Prognosis
Relapse
Review
Risk factors
Tumor Microenvironment
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Summary:The adaptability of glioblastoma (GBM) cells, encouraged by complex interactions with the tumour microenvironment (TME), currently renders GBM an incurable cancer. Despite intensive research, with many clinical trials, GBM patients rely on standard treatments including surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy, which have been observed to induce a more aggressive phenotype in recurrent tumours. This failure to improve treatments is undoubtedly a result of insufficient models which fail to incorporate components of the human brain TME. Research has increasingly uncovered mechanisms of tumour-TME interactions that correlate to worsened patient prognoses, including tumour-associated astrocyte mitochondrial transfer, neuronal circuit remodelling and immunosuppression. This tumour hijacked TME is highly implicated in driving therapy resistance, with further alterations within the TME and tumour resulting from therapy exposure inducing increased tumour growth and invasion. Recent developments improving organoid models, including aspects of the TME, are paving an exciting future for the research and drug development for GBM, with the hopes of improving patient survival growing closer. This review focuses on GBMs interactions with the TME and their effect on tumour pathology and treatment efficiency, with a look at challenges GBM models face in sufficiently recapitulating this complex and highly adaptive cancer.
ISSN:1479-5876
1479-5876
DOI:10.1186/s12967-024-05301-9