Spanish researchers discover how to stop the most lethal type of brain cancer

Good news for the cancer fight! A team of Spanish scientists has discovered that TAU protein, associated with Alzheimer's, could slow the progression of glioma, which is the most lethal kind of brain cancer. Researchers have observed that TAU is present in glioma cells, which has a protective function regulating the ability of the tumour cells to create blood vessels and therefore continue to grow.

Glioma is a rare type of brain cancer but with the highest mortality rates. These are tumours that originate in glial cells, which are responsible for protecting and caring for neurons. These tumours can have different levels of aggressiveness and can be treated up to stage three and make the patient's survival rate reach up to 15 years after diagnosis. However, at stage four, treatments are usually ineffective and life expectancy plummets to about 15 months.

The results of this study, which has been published in Science Translational Medicine, show that TAU is present in the less aggressive gliomas that are associated with mutations in the IDH1/2 genes. TAU inhibits the transition to an aggressive phenotype by blocking the activation of EGFR. This also suggests that the protein could serve as a marker indicating the degree of severity of the disease.

As mentioned above, the study also showed that TAU inhibits the ability of cancer cells to create new blood vessels through which they provide nutrients to more malignant cells. Conclusion: it stops the growth of the tumour. In fact, what has been seen is that the more TAU that is found in a tumour, the fewer "aberrant" blood vessels there are. They are called "aberrant" because they differ from normal blood vessels.

Finally, the study points to the possibility of mimicking the protective function of TAU in gliomas by using drugs already used to fight other tumours or even drugs designed to treat neurodegenerative diseases.  

Apart from cancer, this recent discovery could open the door to continue searching for an effective treatment against Alzheimer's. In this disease, TAU is poorly folded, is not eliminated and accumulates until it kills the neurons. Could what has been discovered work against cancer but in reverse? That's the idea.

The research has been carried out by scientists from the Functional Unit of Chronic Disease Research at the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), in collaboration with researchers from the Center for Biomedical Research Network on Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED), the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC), the Center of Molecular Biology of the CSIC and the 12 de Octubre Hospital, all of which are part of the i+12 Health Research Institute in Madrid.