The most common type of brain cancer is glioblastoma. Treatment for this condition usually includes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. However, glioblastoma tumors often relapse within a few months. Standard forms of therapy are effective against most tumor cells, but after their application, stem cells remain that generate glioblastoma cells, which allows them to form new tumors after destroying the original ones. However, the Zika virus essentially does the opposite: it is capable of destroying stem cells while allowing the rest of the tumor to pass through. Thus, in theory, these different treatments can give good results when used together.
It is this feature of the Zika virus that makes it so dangerous for the human embryo. The virus enters the developing central nervous system and kills neuroprogenitor cells, that is, those cells that later develop into various types of brain neurons. The researchers found that glioblastoma stem cells behave exactly like neuroprogenitor cells, which led them to use the Zika virus as a potential therapy.
In experiments, the Zika virus has demonstrated its ability to kill stem cells removed from patients with glioblastoma, and when it is injected into a brain tumor in mice, it leads to tumor shrinkage. The researchers also found that the virus did not infect non-cancerous brain cells, and that mutated versions of Zika, which were more vulnerable to the body's immune system, were also able to kill glioblastoma cells, although not as effectively as the original strains.
Scientists have not yet proposed using the virus for research in humans, and the virus also works differently in mice and in humans. However, since the Zika virus does not pose a serious threat to adults, the experimental results suggest that its use in the future may become a promising treatment for brain cancer.
Igor Abramov