The Application of Peptides in Glioma: A Novel Tool for Therapy.

Abstract

Glioma is the most aggressive and lethal tumor of the central nervous system. Due to the cellular heterogeneity, the invasiveness, and blood-brain barrier (BBB), current therapeutic approaches, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are poorly to obtain great antitumor efficacy. However, peptides, a novel type of therapeutic agent, displayed excellent ability in the tumor, which becomes a new molecule for glioma treatment. We review the current knowledge on peptides for the treatment of glioma through a PubMed-based literature search. In the treatment of glioma, peptides can be used as (i) decoration on the surface of the delivery system, facilitating the distribution and accumulation of the anti-tumor drug in target site; (ii) anti-tumor active molecules, inhibiting the growth of glioma and reducing solid tumor volume; (iii) immune-stimulating factor, and it activating immune cells in the tumor microenvironment or recruiting immune cells to the tumor for breaking out the immunosuppression by glioma cells. The application of peptides has revolutionized the treatment of glioma, which based on targeting, penetrating, anti-tumor activities and immunostimulatory. Moreover, better outcomes have been discovered in combining different kinds of peptides rather than a single one. Until now, more and more preclinical studies have been developed with multifarious peptides, which shows promising results in vitro or vivo with the model of glioma.