Antiproliferative effect of L1CAM-specific aptamers in human glioblastoma cell cultures

Abstract

Glioblastoma remains an uncurable form of brain tumor. Existing methods of therapy allows to insignificantly prolong patient’s lifespan with this diagnosis. Thus, it is necessary to search for new approaches and develop new principals of glioblastoma therapy. In this paper, we describe the principle of impact on glioblastoma tumor cells, which consists in targeted inhibition of the proliferation of L1CAM-positive cells using aptamers. L1CAM is considered to be a marker of tumor glioma stem cells, the presence of which in a tumor may be responsible for resistance to therapy. As a result of the work, the yly12 aptamer was selected from a panel of aptamers for L1CAM and its antiproliferative effect was shown, which was more pronounced on human glioblastoma cells with increased expression of L1CAM. Thus, the effect can solve the problem of glioblastoma cell resistance and prevent tumor recurrence by influencing cancer glioma stem cells.