Scientists studying the most common and aggressive type of brain tumor in adults have discovered a new way of analyzing diseased and healthy cells from the same patient.
Hugh Adams, spokesman for Brain Tumour Research, said: “There is strong evidence that GBM cells develop from neural stem cells but previous studies have not been able to compare tumour cells and their putative cell of origin from the same person. Prof Marino and her team have now harnessed state-of-the-art stem cell technologies and next-generation DNA sequencing methods to compare diseased and healthy cells from the same patient. Their results have shown how this approach can reveal novel molecular events that appear to go awry when GBM develops, thereby identifying targets for potentially new treatments.”
The results of the team’s work have shown how this approach can reveal novel molecular targets for potentially new treatments. For example, the results reveal how some GBM tumors can control the movement of regulatory T cells, a type of immune cell and has also revealed epigenetic changes that could be used to predict the response to drugs currently in clinical use.
