Artesunate in glioblastoma therapy?

Abstract

Artesunate is an ingredient of Artemisia annua, used for centuries in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for the treatment of inflammation-associated diseases. Today, artesunate is being used worldwide in the treatment of malaria. The drug has also cytotoxic activity against cancer cells and, therefore, we were interested in its mechanism of cell kill. We have shown that artesunate induces ROS and causes DNA damage that triggers apoptosis and necrosis. Next, we addressed the question whether it is able to enhance the killing response of temozolomide (TMZ). We measured apoptosis, necrosis, autophagy and senescence, the ROS level and the amount of DNA damage induced by ART and TMZ in glioblastoma cells. The data will be presented and discussed as to the applicability of a combination regime of TMZ and artesunate for glioma therapy.