Engineered Proteins Show Promise in Stopping Glioblastoma Invasion

May 21, 2025

Researchers have developed innovative engineered proteins that target glioblastoma cells to prevent invasion into healthy tissue. This approach addresses the challenges posed by traditional treatments, which often fall short due to the aggressive nature of this brain cancer. The focus is on minimizing damage to surrounding cells while effectively inhibiting harmful enzymes involved in tumor progression. Promising advancements like these could reshape treatment options for one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Glioblastoma's Invasive Challenge

Glioblastoma quickly invades healthy brain tissue, making surgery incomplete and treatments limited in stopping recurrence.
MMP enzymes, especially MMP-9, drive this invasiveness, yet small molecule inhibitors have failed due to toxicity and low selectivity.

INSIGHT

Engineered TIMPs Overcome Barriers

Researchers engineered smaller TIMP protein variants to block MMPs more effectively by improving cell penetration.
Addition of a cell-penetrating peptide helps these variants cross the blood-brain barrier, a key obstacle in brain cancer treatment.

INSIGHT

Engineered TIMPs Show Effectiveness

Engineered TIMPs reduced glioblastoma cell invasion and migration effectively with low toxicity to healthy cells.
Their enhanced cell entry allows targeted blocking of MMP-9 inside cancer cells, improving potential treatment safety and efficacy.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Scientists have engineered small, targeted proteins that can penetrate brain cancer cells and prevent them from invading healthy tissue, offering a promising new approach to treating glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. This strategy was developed by researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, and published recently in Oncotarget. The Challenge of Treating Glioblastoma Multiforme Glioblastoma is an aggressive and fast-growing brain tumor that infiltrates healthy brain tissue, making complete surgical removal nearly impossible. Standard treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can slow its growth but rarely prevent it from returning. One major reason for this invasiveness is a group of enzymes known as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which break down surrounding tissue to allow cancer cells to spread. Among these, MMP-9 plays a particularly important role in driving tumor progression and resisting existing therapies. Attempts to block MMPs using small-molecule drugs have failed in clinical trials due to problems like poor selectivity and harmful side effects. Researchers have been searching for safer, more targeted methods to interfere with these enzymes and limit glioblastoma’s spread. The Study: Engineered Proteins to Inhibit Tumor Invasion In the study called “Effect of TIMPs and their minimally engineered variants in blocking invasion and migration of brain cancer cells,” researchers Elham Taheri and Maryam Raeeszadeh-Sarmazdeh investigated tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), which are natural blockers of MMPs, and their engineered modified versions made to work better. Specifically, the team studied TIMP-1, TIMP-3, along with two engineered molecules, mTC1 and mTC3, in laboratory cell models of GBM. Full blog - https://www.oncotarget.org/2025/05/21/engineered-proteins-show-promise-in-stopping-glioblastoma-invasion/ Paper DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28691 Correspondence to - Maryam Raeeszadeh-Sarmazdeh - maryamr@unr.edu Video short - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdBlkOX50D8 Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://oncotarget.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Foncotarget.28691 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Oncotarget - https://www.oncotarget.com/subscribe/ Keywords - cancer, TIMP minimal variants, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), brain cancer, MMP inhibitors To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com and connect with us: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ X - https://twitter.com/oncotarget Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/oncotargetjrnl/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@OncotargetJournal LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/ Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0gRwT6BqYWJzxzmjPJwtVh MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM