News Brief by Catie Donlon
In the United States, about 4,000
children have brain tumors. The current treatments for these children
include surgery and chemotherapy, which often cause negative side
effects. However, research at Johns Hopkins suggests that there may
be a new way to treat low-grade gliomas because of a newly
discovered, active genetic pathway.
Low-grade gliomas are the most common
pediatric brain tumors, and researchers have found that these tumors
have a highly active protein pathway, called the mammalian target of
rapamycin (mTOR). This mTOR pathway essentially helps the tumor
survive and grow in the brain. However, when a drug affects the
rapamycin protein, the rest of the mTOR pathway is inhibited,
resulting in significantly less growth of the tumor.
Johns Hopkins studied 177 samples of
low-grade gliomas and the effect of MK8669 (ridaforolimus), a drug
that blocks mTOR. Through their studies, they discovered that the
mTOR pathways were active over 80 percent of the time. When the
low-grade glioma cells were introduced to the MK8669 drug, there was
a 73 percent decrease in cell growth in 6 days in one cell line, and a 21 percent decrease in 4 days in the second cell line. This data suggests that
drugs that inhibit the mTOR pathway could greatly reduce the size and
effect of tumors. Yet because most of the mTOR pathways were found in
the optic pathways of the brain, drug outcomes could greatly vary in
tumors located in different areas. Research on other inhibiting drugs
that affect the mTOR pathway will continue in animal models, in hopes
to discover drugs that could become new, effective treatment options
for pediatric tumors.
Reference: Common Genetic Pathway Could Be Conduit to Pediatric Tumor Treatment - 11/06/2013. (2013, November 6). Common Genetic Pathway Could Be Conduit to Pediatric Tumor Treatment - 11/06/2013. Retrieved November 20, 2013, from http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/common_genetic_pathway_could_be_conduit_to_pediatric_tumor_treatment
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