Natural products: A hope for glioblastoma patients

Raghupathy Vengoji, Muzafar A Macha, Surinder K. Batra, Nicole A. Shonka

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

85 Scopus citations

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most aggressive malignant tumors with an overall dismal survival averaging one year despite multimodality therapeutic interventions including surgery, radiotherapy and concomitant and adjuvant chemotherapy. Few drugs are FDA approved for GBM, and the addition of temozolomide (TMZ) to standard therapy increases the median survival by only 2.5 months. Targeted therapy appeared promising in in vitro monolayer cultures, but disappointed in preclinical and clinical trials, partly due to the poor penetration of drugs through the blood brain barrier (BBB). Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have intrinsic resistance to initial chemoradiation therapy (CRT) and acquire further resistance via deregulation of many signaling pathways. Due to the failure of classical chemotherapies and targeted drugs, research efforts focusing on the use of less toxic agents have increased. Interestingly, multiple natural compounds have shown antitumor and apoptotic effects in TMZ resistant and p53 mutant GBM cell lines and also displayed synergistic effects with TMZ. In this review, we have summarized the current literature on natural products or product analogs used to modulate the BBB permeability, induce cell death, eradicate CSCs and sensitize GBM to CRT.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)22199-22224
Number of pages26
JournalOncotarget
Volume9
Issue number31
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 24 2018

Keywords

  • Blood brain barrier and chemotherapeutic drugs
  • Glioblastoma
  • Temozolomide

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology

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