Death Ligand/Death Receptor-Mediated Apoptosis for Treatment of Brain Tumors

The poor prognosis for patients with malignant gliomas calls for novel therapeutic approaches in this field of oncology. At present, involved-field radiotherapy is the single most effective treatment. Most of the currently available chemotherapy strategies fail because of the resistance of glioma cells to cytotoxic agents. Mutations of tumor suppressor genes (such as Rb or p53) or enhanced expression of oncogenes (such as bcl-2 or bcl-X), both common features of malignant gliomas, may inhibit the efficient killing of tumor cells by cytotoxic drugs or radiotherapy. Because activation of apoptotic cell death cascades is now considered to be a powerful instrument to rapidly and specifically induce the death of target cells, many researchers are seeking ways to utilize the apoptotic signaling pathway for therapeutic purposes.