Poisoned bait for glioblastoma
Cancer cells forced to leave the brain
Kirill Stasevich, Compulenta
Glioblastomas are considered to be the most frequent and most aggressive brain tumors, and one of the reasons why they are difficult to treat is that glioblastoma cells literally spread across the brain, traveling through nerve fibers and blood vessels. It can be said that tumor cells use nerves and vessels as a monorail along which they penetrate into another area of the brain. As a result, a new tumor may appear in a completely inoperable place, and even removing the primary tumor will not help much here.
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) have come up with a rather unexpected and ingenious way to limit the aggressiveness of glioblastoma to some extent. If tumor cells are so fond of traveling along nerves and blood vessels, then why not send them down the wrong path by simulating these very nerves and vessels? Ravi Bellamkonda and his colleagues did just that, creating artificial fibers through which glioblastoma cells can be removed to some area more accessible for medical intervention.
When tumor cells begin their journey, they secrete special enzymes that make it easier for them to travel through the tissues. This causes malignant cells to spend a lot of energy, and therefore they will prefer a way in which energy costs will be minimal. That was the idea: to create an artificial "monorail" for cancer cells, similar to the natural "road" in the brain, but at the same time requiring less energy to advance.
The decoy fibers were made of a polycaprolactone polymer on a polyurethane carrier: from the outside they could be mistaken for nerve fibers and blood vessels. They were implanted into the brains of rats with human glioblastoma. Some animals were injected with fibers without polycaprolactone, in others the fibers carried a polymer, but not textured, that is, with a surface unlike the natural "pathways" of nerves and blood vessels.
These fibers led from the brain directly into a special container filled with cyclopamine gel, toxic to cancer cells. After 18 days, it turned out that in animals that had fibers with nerve and vascular polycaprolactone brought to the tumor, the tumor noticeably decreased: the cells really went through these fibers into the poisonous collector.
If you use your imagination, it can be compared to the legend of the pied piper of Hamelin, who could lead rats by playing a pipe and drown them in the river. Although this method can be found and a more prosaic analogy in the form of drainage of pus from the wound, only here we have not pus or any other undesirable fluid, but cancer cells, from the sore spot. We said above that glioblastomas often end up in inoperable parts of the brain, but synthetic fibers can be injected into such areas that will suck out cells and prevent the tumor from growing.
In addition, with the help of this technique, it is possible to prevent further dispersal of cancer cells in the brain. And another advantage of the method is that there is no need to flood the brain and the whole body with poisonous drugs that destroy malignant cells.
However, so far this technology has been demonstrated only on animals and with only one type of brain tumor. In the future, the authors of the work want to test their miracle fibers on other types of brain cancer. And in the future, perhaps, with the help of this outlandish method, it will be possible, if not to get rid of cancer completely, then at least to distill it into a place from where it will be easy to remove it.
The results of the study are published in Nature Materials: Jain et al., Guiding intracortical brain tumour cells to an extracortical cytotoxic hydrogel using aligned polymeric nanofibres.
Prepared based on the materials of the Georgia Institute of Technology:
Researchers Hijack Cancer Migration Mechanism to “Move” Brain Tumors.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.02.2014