The Role of Microenvironment in the Homing, Maintenance and Release of Glioma Stem-like Cells

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly aggressive, infiltrative, and lethal brain tumor type. GBM patients have an overall survival of <1 year, despite major research efforts in diagnosis and treatment. Almost all patients experience tumor recurrence, and currently there is no standard of care for recurrent GBM. Resistance to genotoxic modalities has been attributed to a small subset of glioma stem-like cells (GSLCs) within these tumors which are highly tumorigenic and invasive. There have been several reports that suggest that the GSLCs are protected by the microenvironment, especially the GSLC niches. Several factors are secreted by multiple cell types within the niche that are involved in regulating GSLC homing, maintenance of stemness properties, and modulating their differentiation ability. Disrupting the cross-talk between GSLCs and their niches might provide an effective therapeutic benefit in GBM patients. The main scope of this topic is to expand our knowledge in following areas:
- Factors governing homing of GSLCs into the niche
- Contribution of various cell types in GSLC homing and maintenance or dedifferentiation of non-GSLC cells
- Interactions between GSLCs and normal neural stem cell niche / similarities between normal NSC niche and GSLC niche
- Interactions between GSLCs and the microenvironment that promote therapy resistance and stemness
- Hypoxia and its role in maintenance of GSLCs
- Drugs targeting homing of GSLCs into the niche regions
- Similarities between leukemia stem cell niche and GSLC niche