The study was published in the recent issue of the science journal “Nature”.
Thiruvananthapuram:
A team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center has made a ground-breaking discovery in a way that could revolutionize medicine by attaching to healthy brain cells to make them hyperactive and stimulated. Rapid loss of consciousness and death in patients.
The team, led by Indian scientist Sarita Krishna, also found that a commonly used anti-seizure drug was effective in reducing the hyperactivity of tumor cells and inhibiting their growth.
The study was published in the recent issue of the science journal “Nature”.
Scientists have discovered that the communication between healthy brain cells and cancer cells can be used to slow or even stop tumor growth.
These findings will be even more important for patients with glioblastoma, which is thought to be the deadliest of all brain cancers in adults, the study said.
Research by Krishna and fellow scientist Shawn Hervey-Jumper discovered a previously unknown mechanism by which brain tumors can hijack and improve brain circuitry, while recording brain activity in patients undergoing brain tumor surgery to reduce cognitive function in glioma patients. .
Speaking to PTI, Ms. Krishna, a native of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala and head of the newspaper, said that while patients were being given language tasks during consciousness surgery, in addition to the normal language areas of the brain, Tumor-infiltrating brain regions distant from language brain zones and more distant.
This unexpected finding shows that malignant cancer cells can hijack and reorganize surrounding brain tissue, accelerating cognitive decline and shortening survival times among patients.
This prompted scientists to conduct extensive biological characterization of the associated tumor cells using brain organoids (small neurons derived from human stem cells and mouse models engrafted with human glioblastoma cells).
“These experiments revealed the key role of a protein called thrombospondin-1 in this neuronal hyperexcitability, and that the commonly used anti-seizure drug gabapentin successfully reduced neuronal hyperexcitability and halted further tumor growth,” the study said.
Scientists suggest that this discovery could be very important in developing more effective treatments for malignant diseases such as glioblastoma.
“In addition to its known anti-seizure activity, this study highlights the potential of repurposing this drug to target tumor growth using mouse models of gabapentin’s anti-tumor effects, thereby accelerating the development of therapeutic drugs for patients with malignant glioma,” said Sarita.
In addition, he said, the key discovery of cancer cell hijacking of brain security could lead to the development of drugs and neuromodulation techniques that interrupt the communication of neurons with brain cancer cells to inhibit tumor growth.
“Non-invasive brain modulating techniques used to improve the nervous system in common epilepsy and mental disorders can now be used in clinical trials to try to inhibit glioma activity in patients with brain cancer,” said Sarita.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is from a syndicated feed.)