Tabatabai
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Neurologie, Klinik für » Dr. Ghazaleh Tabatabai » Tabatabai
Current research project
| Title / Titel | Modulation of the sphingolipid pathway to overcome radio- and/or chemoresistance in experimental gliomas | ||||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | Malignant gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors. Glioblastoma is a highly malignant primary brain tumor with a median survival of 7 to 9 months in population-based studies. A major problem in the treatment of these tumors is resistance to chemo- and/or radiotherapy. Therefore, new strategies to overcome the resistance to therapy are urgently needed. We investigate here the role of the sphingolipid pathway in this regard. Acid shingomyelinase (ASM) is a key enzyme in the sphingolipid signaling cascade, catalyzing the cleavage of sphingomyelin, a lipid component of cell membranes and thereby producing ceramide. Ceramide itself can enhance activation of cell death signaling pathways. Ceramide levels are significantly decreased in human colon cancers, ovarian cancers as well as in gliomas. ASM is activated by stress stimuli such as irradiation, UV- light, and some chemotherapeutic drugs, in particular cisplatin, gemcitabine and doxorubicin. We used an ASM overexpressing lentivirus to generate ASM-overexpressing human/murine glioma cell lines and patient-derived glioma-initiating stem like cultures. ASM activity in ASM-overexpressing cells was measured by acid sphingomyelinase activity assays. Currently, we investigate the resistance to standard drugs applied in glioma treatment (e.g. lomustine or temozolomide) and to radiotherapy. | ||||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | malignant glioma, resistance to therapy, sphingolipid pathway, acid sphinomyelinase | ||||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Other links to external web pages | http://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/Forschung/Forschungsschwerpunkte/Sonderforschungsbereiche/SFB_773-p-14391/Projektbereich_A-p-19632/Projekt_A6.html | ||||||
| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
Others DFG, SFB 773 (Germany) |
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| In collaboration with / In Zusammenarbeit mit |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jul 2008 to Jul 2012 |