title: Hitting a Moving Target: Glioma Stem Cells Demand New Approaches in Glioblastoma Therapy.
abstract: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) continues to devastate patients and outfox investigators and clinicians despite the preponderance of research directed at its biology, pathogenesis and therapeutic advances. GBM routinely outlasts multidisciplinary treatment protocols, almost inevitably recurring in a yet more aggressive and resistant form with distinct genetic differences from the original tumor. Attempts to glean further insight into GBM point increasingly toward a subpopulation of cells with a stem-like phenotype. These cancer stem cells, similar to those now described in a variety of malignancies, are capable of tumorigenesis from a population of susceptible cells.
  
  
  
  Glioma stem cells have thus become a prevalent focus in GBM research for their presumed role in development, maintenance and recurrence of tumors. Glioma stem cells infiltrate the white matter surrounding tumors and often evade resection. They are uniquely suited both biochemically and environmentally to resist the best therapy currently available, intrinsically and efficiently resistant to standard chemo- and radiotherapy. These stem cells create an extremely heterogenous tumor that to date has had an answer for every therapeutic question, with continued dismal patient survival. Targeting this population of glioma stem cells may hold the long-awaited key to durable therapeutic efficacy in GBM.
authors.forename: Drew A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Brenda M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Auffinger
authors.forename: Jason P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: Megan E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Muroski
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Yureve
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gorind
authors.affiliation: Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Northwestern University, 676 N. St. Clair Street, Suite 2210, Chicago, IL60611, United States.
authors.forename: Maciej S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lesniak
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm / Q000187:drug effects; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D005910:Glioma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology* / Q000528:radiation effects
keywords: Chemotherapy; drug targets; glioblastoma multiforme; glioma stem cells; niches; recurrence; resistance