Current Opportunities for Targeting Dysregulated Neurodevelopmental Signaling Pathways in Glioblastoma

Cells. 2022 Aug 15;11(16):2530. doi: 10.3390/cells11162530.

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and highly lethal type of brain tumor, with poor survival despite advances in understanding its complexity. After current standard therapeutic treatment, including tumor resection, radiotherapy and concomitant chemotherapy with temozolomide, the median overall survival of patients with this type of tumor is less than 15 months. Thus, there is an urgent need for new insights into GBM molecular characteristics and progress in targeted therapy in order to improve clinical outcomes. The literature data revealed that a number of different signaling pathways are dysregulated in GBM. In this review, we intended to summarize and discuss current literature data and therapeutic modalities focused on targeting dysregulated signaling pathways in GBM. A better understanding of opportunities for targeting signaling pathways that influences malignant behavior of GBM cells might open the way for the development of novel GBM-targeted therapies.

Keywords: BMP signaling; GBM subtypes; Hippo signaling; Notch signaling; RA signaling; SHH signaling; TGFβ signaling; Wnt/β-catenin signaling; glioblastoma.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Brain Neoplasms* / metabolism
  • Glioblastoma* / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Signal Transduction
  • Temozolomide / pharmacology
  • Temozolomide / therapeutic use

Substances

  • Temozolomide

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (Agreement no. 451-03-68/2022-14/200042) and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Grant number F24).