Publications by authors named "Swetha Thambireddy"

Acquired resistance to conventional chemotherapeutic agents limits their effectiveness and can cause cancer treatment to fail. Because enzymes in the aurora kinase family are vital regulators of several mitotic events, we reasoned that targeting these kinases with tozasertib, a pan-aurora kinase inhibitor, would not only cause cytokinesis defects, but also induce cell death in high-grade pediatric and adult glioma cell lines. We found that tozasertib induced cell cycle arrest, increased mitochondrial permeability and reactive oxygen species generation, inhibited cell growth and migration, and promoted cellular senescence and pro-apoptotic activity.

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To improve therapeutic responses in patients with glioma, new combination therapies that exploit a mechanistic understanding of the inevitable emergence of drug resistance are needed. Intratumoral heterogeneity enables a low barrier to resistance in individual patients with glioma. We reasoned that targeting two or more fundamental processes that gliomas are particularly dependent upon could result in pleiotropic effects that would reduce the diversity of resistant subpopulations allowing convergence to a more robust therapeutic strategy.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explored the effects of various CDK inhibitors on human glioma cells, finding that generally, they did not induce cell death at clinically relevant concentrations.
  • However, dinaciclib showed significant cytotoxic effects specifically in Bcl-xL silenced cells, indicating a dependence on the silencing for its effectiveness.
  • Dinaciclib triggered apoptosis by disrupting mitochondrial function and upregulating pro-apoptotic proteins, suggesting a potential therapeutic strategy for enhancing its effectiveness in glioma treatment when combined with Bcl-xL inhibition.
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