Signal Transduction Alterations in Glioma: Implications for Diagnosis and Therapy
1Istituto per l'Endocrinologia e l'Oncologia Sperimentale “G. Salvator” (IEOS), CNR, Naples, Italy
2Anatomia Patologica, Instituto Oftalmico, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain
3Cologne Center for Genomics, CECAD Cologne - Excellent in Aging Research, Cologne, Germany
Signal Transduction Alterations in Glioma: Implications for Diagnosis and Therapy
Description
Malignant gliomas are the leading cause of CNS tumour-related death, and patients with glioblastoma have a life expectancy of less than one year despite surgery, chemo-, and radio-therapy, and the prognosis is even worse in children with brain stem malignant gliomas.
Gliomas are divided into four clinical grades on the basis of their histology and prognosis. The most malignant grade 4 astrocytoma, or glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), either arises de novo (usually associated to EGFR pathway activation & PTEN inactivation leading to PI3K kinase/AKT activation pathway) or progresses from lower grade to higher grade over time (characteristically due to p53 and retinoblastoma pathways inactivation). Due to a combination of its complex phenotype and organ-specific clinical manifestations, efforts to refine GBM treatment with targeted therapies have largely been frustrated. Therefore, the identification and characterization of signal transduction pathways alterations, with a pathogenic role in glioma development and progression, may contribute to the identification of therapeutic targets aimed at a more efficient treatment.
Imaging based on magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography plays an important role for primary diagnosis, planning of surgery and radiation, and in the determination of treatment response and time to tumor progression. Various molecular targets have been used to develop improved radiotracers, which may serve complementary information on the biology of gliomas.
We invite authors to contribute original research and review articles aimed to a better understanding of the signal pathways altered, leading to these diseases and to gain new insight into the development of signal pathways markers of innovative diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic modalities. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Understanding of aberrant signal transduction pathways in glioma
- Epigenetic mechanisms producing signal pathways deregulation in gliomas
- Angiogenic signalling pathways altered in gliomas: selection mechanisms for more aggressive neoplastic subpopulations with invasive phenotype
- Understanding of glioma stem cells' biology
- New Approaches in tumor imaging and biomarker development of pathways alterations, predictive of biological progression, and treatment response
- Innovative strategies to treat glioma, applied to signal pathways alterations: antibodies, small molecules, siRNA, microRNA, nucleic acid aptamers, stem cells, viral, and nonviral gene therapy strategies
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jst/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: