Thursday, 25 August 2016

zinc + temozolomide regresses U87 GBM in mice

From a new study in Oncotarget.


The green line in the top graph shows tumor regression in mice treated with zinc + temozolomide, but not with temozolomide alone.  The bottom graph shows tumor volume at 7 time points in each of the groups (no tumor at the final two time points in the TMZ + zinc group).  

This was an orthotopic (intracranial) tumor implant model, with U87 (p53 wild-type) GBM cells, and TMZ and zinc were administered orally. The study does not say the dose of zinc used, and does not address whether zinc is normalizing the protein conformation of p53 in the U87 cells.  A prior publication showed that U87 cells had mostly mutant-type dysfunctional conformation of the p53 protein, even though there was no p53 gene mutation, due to high expression of metallothionein which steals zinc from the p53 protein.



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