New avenues for brain tumour therapy

Two papers now suggest potential new lead compounds and adjuvant therapies for the treatment and management of brain tumours. Buckingham et al. investigated the aetiology of epileptic seizures caused by the presence of primary brain tumours. Brain slices from a mouse model of tumour-induced seizures exhibited an increase in glutamate release from the tumour, which was mediated by the system x_c⁻ cysteine–glutamate transporter. Moreover, the resultant epileptic glutamatergic hyperexcitability spread into adjacent brain tissue. Blockade of glutamate release using sulfasalazine — an approved drug that blocks system x_c⁻ — reduced the frequency of epileptic events in tumour-bearing mice, suggesting that this drug could be used to ameliorate peritumoural seizures. In the second study Atkinson et al. used multicell screening, kinome-wide binding assays and a mouse model to identify potential new treatments for the chemoresistant brain tumour ependymoma. They identified kinases within the insulin signalling pathway and the centrosome cycle as regulators of ependymoma cell proliferation, which could be blocked using the corresponding inhibitors. In addition, approved drugs with selective toxicity against ependymoma cells were identified. Moreover, the approach used by the authors could be used to identify leads for other rare cancers.