The Role of Hypoxia in Glioblastoma Radiotherapy Resistance.

Glioblastoma (GB) (grade IV astrocytoma) is the most malignant type of primary brain tumor with a 16 months median survival time following diagnosis. Despite increasing attention regarding the development of targeted therapies for GB that resulted in around 450 clinical trials currently undergoing, radiotherapy still remains the most clinically effective treatment for these patients. Nevertheless, radiotherapy resistance (radioresistance) is commonly observed in GB patients leading to tumor recurrence and eventually patient death.

Investigating Glioblastoma Response to Hypoxia.

Glioblastoma (GB) is the most common and deadly type of primary malignant brain tumor with an average patient survival of only 15-17 months. GBs typically have hypoxic regions associated with aggressiveness and chemoresistance. Using patient derived GB cells, we characterized how GB responds to hypoxia.

Osmotic stress, a proinflammatory signal in Caco-2 cells.

Hyper- (450 mOsm/l) and hypoosmotic exposure (150 mOsm/l) of Caco-2 cells, a human intestinal epithelial cell line, induced a twofold- and a fivefold increase in the production of IL-8, a constitutively expressed cytokine, respectively. This was observed both in the presence or in the absence of added proinflammatory cytokines and the stimulatory effect of osmotic stress was additive to that induced by the cytokines. Thus, IL-8 production appeared minimal around isoosmolarity, i.