The enemy of my enemy

The causative agent of Zika fever was able to destroy glioblastoma stem cells, thereby stopping the growth of tumors

Zarina Zomanova, Life

The staff of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis) used the virus that causes Zika fever to destroy glioblastoma stem cancer cells, an aggressive brain cancer whose patients almost never live longer than five years from the moment of diagnosis. The results of testing the virus as a medicine are presented in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, and the press release of Zika virus kills brain cancer stem cells is available on the Eurekalert website.

The experiment was based on the property of the Zika virus to kill dividing cells in the nervous system. Stem cancer cells that give rise to tumors, including glioblastoma, are similar in properties to stem cells-precursors of neurons: they actively divide. Therefore, the researchers infected stem cancer cells obtained from patients with glioblastoma with the causative agent of Zika fever. In another series of experiments, they injected the virus directly into the brains of cancer-stricken laboratory mice and, two weeks after that, assessed the size of the tumors. To make sure that the virus destroys only dividing cells, it was also tested on brain tissue samples obtained from patients with schizophrenia. They, like other adults, have practically no stem cells in the brain.

The causative agent of Zika fever reduced the number of cancer stem cells obtained from glioblastoma patients, but did not kill neurons in the tissues of schizophrenia patients. This means that the virus acts selectively – not on all nerve cells in a row, but only on dividing ones. In addition, in mice with brain cancer who were injected with the virus, tumors were noticeably smaller in volume two weeks after surgery than in those who were injected with placebo – saline solution. It is important that mice injected with the virus lived on average longer than rodents from the control group.

Thus, the Zika virus has proved to be an effective and safe remedy against glioblastoma in animal and human tissue tests. In the future, clinical trials involving patients with glioblastoma will be necessary. The obvious disadvantage of a potential treatment method is that viruses will need to be injected directly into the brain, otherwise they will either be destroyed by the immune system, or they will cause a corresponding fever, but they will not affect glioblastoma stem cells in any way. However, the unusual way of introducing the virus seems to be a low price to pay for prolonging or even saving a life.

Zika fever is a viral infectious disease, especially dangerous for the developing nervous system of the fetus, in which many precursors of nerve cells divide. It is common in South and Central America, as well as in Africa and Southeast Asia. In Russia in 2016-2017, several cases of importation of the causative agent of the disease were recorded. Zika virus is carried by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, which live mainly in tropical regions.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  05.09.2017