Peptide-targeted nitric oxide delivery for the treatment of glioblatoma multiforme

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant central nervous system tumor. The ability of glioma cells to rapidly disperse and invade healthy brain tissue, coupled with their high resistance to chemotherapy and radiation have resulted in extremely poor prognoses among patients. In recent years, nitric oxide (NO) has been discovered to play a ubiquitous of role in human physiology and studies have shown that, at sufficient concentrations, NO is able to induce apoptosis as well as chemosensitization in tumor cells. This thesis discusses the synthesis and characterization of targeted NO donors for the treatment of GBM. Two glioma targeting biomolecules, Chlorotoxin (CTX) and VTWTPQAWFQWVGGGSKKKKK (VTW) were reacted with NO gas to synthesize NO donors. These NO donors, CTX-NO and VTW-NO, released NO for over 3 days and were able to induce cytotoxicity in a dose dependent manner in glioma cells. The biggest advantage, a result of the targeted delivery of NO, was that the NO donors did not have toxic effects on astrocytes and endothelial cells. To characterize the chemosensitizing effects of CTX-NO, cells were incubated with CTX-NO prior to exposure to temozolomide (TMZ) or carmustine (BCNU). These drugs are the most popular chemotherapeutics used in the treatment of GBM, but have only shown modest improvements in patient survival. Viability studies showed that CTX-NO selectively elicited chemosensitivity in glioma cells, whereas the chemosensitivty of astrocytes and endothelial cells remained unaffected. Further investigation showed that CTX-NO pretreatment decreased O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) and p53 levels, suggesting that a decrease in DNA repair ability may be the mechanism by which chemosensitivity is induced. Lastly, the effects of CTX-NO on glioma cell invasion and migration were studied using Boyden chamber and modified scratch assays. Non-toxic doses of CTX-NO decreased glioma cell invasion in a dose dependent manner. Studies quantifying matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) surface expression demonstrated that while MMP-2 expression was decreased by both CTX and CTX-NO, MMP-9 expression was decreased only by CTX-NO. Furthermore quantifying MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity levels showed that NO and CTX work synergistically to decrease the activity of the enzymes. These studies demonstrate that the decrease in glioma invasion resulting from CTX-NO treatment was partially a consequence of decreased levels of surface and activated MMP-2 and MMP-9. The work presented in this thesis describes a novel approach to treating GBM that can be modified to develop treatments for various other tumors. Furthermore this is the first study to develop glioma-targeting NO donors.PhDCommittee Chair: Taite, Lakeshia ; Committee Member: Bellamkonda, Ravi; Committee Member: Dawson, Michelle; Committee Member: Lu, Hang ; Committee Member: Prausnitz, Mar