“Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common form of primary adult brain tumors…
It is, therefore, essential to discover master regulators that control GBM invasiveness and target them therapeutically.
We demonstrate here that the transcriptional regulator Id-1 plays a critical role in modulating the invasiveness of GBM cell lines and primary GBM cells.
Furthermore, we show that a non-toxic compound, cannabidiol, significantly down-regulates Id-1 gene expression and associated glioma cell invasiveness…
Our results suggest that Id-1 regulates multiple tumor-promoting pathways in GBM, and that drugs targeting Id-1 represent a novel and promising strategy for improving the therapy and outcome of GBM patients.
We previously showed a strong correlation between Id-1 expression and the invasive and metastatic behavior of breast cancer cells.”
“Cannabidiol as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gene expression in aggressive breast cancer cells… CBD represents the first nontoxic exogenous agent that can significantly decrease Id-1 expression in metastatic breast cancer cells… Moreover, reducing Id-1 expression with cannabinoids could also provide a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of additional aggressive cancers because Id-1 expression was found to be up-regulated during the progression of almost all types…” http://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/6/11/2921.long
“In this report, we show that Id-1 is a key regulator of brain tumor cell invasiveness and neurosphere growth, and that Id-1 expression is specifically up-regulated in tissues from patients with high-grade gliomas. Importantly, we demonstrate that targeting Id-1 expression using either genetic approaches or the non-toxic cannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD), leads to a significant reduction in the invasion of both GBM cell lines and patient-derived primary GBM cultures. CBD also significantly inhibits GBM dispersal ex vivo, and reduces tumor growth and Id-1 expression in vivo.
Consistent with the breast cancer study, we found that the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD significantly down-regulated Id-1 expression in serum-derived and primary GBM cells. As expected, we observed robust inhibition of glioma cell invasiveness.
In conclusion, our results establish Id-1 as a key regulator of both invasion and stemness in GBM cells and demonstrate that the non-toxic cannabinoid compound CBD down-regulates Id-1 expression and tumor aggressiveness in culture and in vivo.
The data also shed light on some of the key pathways that control GBM cell dispersal and progression. A greater understanding of these pathways may lead to more effective therapies for cancer patients including the additional refinement of cannabinoid analogs targeting Id-1.
We expect our efforts to ultimately translate to the development of future clinical trials with nontoxic compounds that target the expression of Id-1, a master regulator of GBM aggressiveness.
With its lack of systemic toxicity and psychoactivity, CBD is an ideal candidate agent in this regard and may prove useful in combination with front-line agents for the treatment of patients with aggressive and high-grade GBM tumors.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3594064/