The treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) is a challenge for the biomedical research since cures remain elusive. Its current therapy, consisted on surgery, radiotherapy, and concomitant chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ), is often uneffective. Here, we proposed the use of zoledronic acid (ZOL) as a potential agent for the treatment of GBM. Our group previously developed self-assembling nanoparticle...

Aberrant cell-surface glycosylation patterns are present on virtually all tumors and have been linked to tumor progression, metastasis, and invasivity. We have shown that expressing a normally quiescent, glycoprotein-specific alpha2,6-sialyltransferase (ST6Gal1) gene in gliomas inhibited invasivity in vitro and tumor formation in vivo. To identify other glycogene targets with therapeutic potent...

The glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant brain tumor in adults. Despite combination treatments of radiation and chemotherapy, the survival periods are very short. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the potential of ginsenoside F2 (F2) to treat GBM. In in vitro experiments with glioblastoma cells U373MG, F2 showed the cytotoxic effect with IC50 of 50 μg/mL throug...

Carboxylesterases, expressed at high levels in human liver and intestine, are thought to detoxify xenobiotics. The anticancer prodrug 7-ethyl-10-[4-1-piperidino)-1-piperidino]carbonyloxycamptothecin (CPT-11) is also metabolized by carboxylesterases to produce the active drug 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin. Activation of CPT-11 by human intestinal carboxylesterase (hiCE) in the human intestine m...

We present data that letrozole, an extensively used aromatase inhibitor in the treatment of estrogen receptor-positive breast tumors in postmenopausal women, may be potentially used in the treatment of glioblastomas. First, we measured the in vitro cytotoxicity of letrozole and aromatase (CYP19A1) expression and activity in human LN229, T98G, U373MG, U251MG, and U87MG, and rat C6 glioma cell li...