AG488 as a therapy against gliomas

// Jadith Ziegler 1, 2 , Anja Bastian 3 , Megan Lerner 4 , Lora Bailey-Downs 3 , Debra Saunders 1 , Nataliya Smith 1 , Jake Sutton 1 , James D. Battiste 5 , Michael A. Ihnat 3 , Aleem Gangjee 6 and Rheal A. Towner 1, 2, 3, 5 1 Advanced Magnetic Resonance Center, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK, USA 2 Department of Pathology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA 4 Department of Surgery Research Laboratory, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA 5 Stephenson Cancer Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA 6 Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Correspondence to: Rheal A. Towner, email: Rheal-Towner@omrf.org Keywords: gliomas, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in vivo , anti-cancer therapy, angiogenesis Received: February 13, 2017 Accepted: May 05, 2017 Published: May 30, 2017 ABSTRACT High-grade gliomas such as glioblastomas (GBM) present a deadly prognosis following diagnosis and very few effective treatment options. Here, we investigate if the small molecule AG488 can be an effective therapy against GBM with both anti-angiogenic as well as an anti-microtubule inhibiting modalities, using a human G55 glioma xenograft model in nude mice. From in vitro studies, we report that AG488 incubation reduced cell viability in G55 and HMEC-1 cells more so than TMZ treatment, and AG488 treatment also decreased cell viability in normal astrocytes, but not as much as for G55 cells (p