The malignant brain tumors – gliomas – which can rarely be cured by surgery and/or radiotherapy alone are highly malignant and invasive. To add to their malignancy, the conventional therapies for the tumor are not just ineffective, but the probable course and outcome of the disease are also poor.
So this situation calls for better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlies this invasive behavior. In a bid to make such further study, experts injected immuno-compromised mice with human gliomas.
The study comparing invasive cells, leaving the primary tumor site, to noninvasive cells remaining at the injection site, identified the neurotrophin receptor — p75NTR — an important regulator of glioma invasion.
And, for the first time, this neurotrophin receptor that can also be a potent mediator of glioma invasion has been spotted. They show this receptor’s expression as sufficient in imparting a dramatic ‘invasive behavior’ on genetically distinct tumors.
Thus, a previously unknown function of the receptor has been identified, revealing the regulator for brain tumor invasion – leading towards inventing a therapeutic method needed to treat the killer-cancer.
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