BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

Swell Effect on Glioma

May 29, 2008 7:00 AM UTC

Gliomas, unlike most other tumor types, grow and expand by killing off surrounding tissue, causing neurodegeneration and edema. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy attack the tumor itself, but do not address these two other effects of the cancer. A paper in Nature Medicine suggests that neurodegeneration and edema can be alleviated by hitting one target-the glutamate transporter xCT-making selective inhibition of xCT a potentially useful adjunct to glioma treatments.

For a nearly a decade it has been known that the neurodegeneration associated with gliomas results from their release of excess glutamate triggered by xCT overexpression.1,2 The Nature Medicine paper now reports that the induced neurodegeneration is a significant-if not the exclusive-contributor to brain edema...