A Combined Effect of G-Quadruplex and Neuro-Inducers as an Alternative Approach to Human Glioblastoma Therapy

Galina Pavlova; Varvara Kolesnikova; Nadezhda Samoylenkova; Sergey Drozd; Alexander Revishchin; Dzhirgala Shamadykova; Dmitry Y Usachev; Alexey Kopylov

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.880740

A Combined Effect of G-Quadruplex and Neuro-Inducers as an Alternative Approach to Human Glioblastoma Therapy

Front Oncol. 2022 Apr 28:12:880740. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.880740. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Galina Pavlova^{1

2

3}, Varvara Kolesnikova¹, Nadezhda Samoylenkova², Sergey Drozd², Alexander Revishchin¹, Dzhirgala Shamadykova¹, Dmitry Y Usachev², Alexey Kopylov⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Genetics Development, Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Moscow, Russia.
² Federal State Autonomous Institution «N. N. Burdenko National Medical Research Center of Neurosurgery» of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia.
³ Department of Medical Genetics, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia.
⁴ Chemistry Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

Cancer cell reprogramming based on treatment with G-quadruplex, having antiproliferative power, along with small molecules able to develop iPSCs into neurons, could create a novel approach to diminish the chance of glioblastoma recurrence and circumvent tumor resistance to conventional therapy. In this research, we have tested several combinations of factors to affect both total cell cultures, derived from tumor tissue of patients after surgical resection and two subfractions of this cell culture after dividing them into CD133-enriched and CD133-depleted populations (assuming CD133 to be a marker of glioblastoma stem-like cells). CD133⁺ and CD133^- cells exhibit different responses to the same combinations of factors; CD133⁺ cells have stem-like properties and are more resistant. Therefore, the ability to affect CD133⁺ cells provides a possibility to circumvent resistance to conventional therapy and to build a promising strategy for translation to improve the treatment of patients with glioblastoma.

Keywords: CD133; aptamers; cancer stem cells; cell reprogramming; glioblastoma multiforme.