TRAIL-induced apoptosis and proteasomal activity - Mechanisms, signalling and interplay

Programmed cell death, in particular apoptosis, is essential during development and tissue homeostasis, and also is the primary strategy to induce cancer cell death by cytotoxic therapies. Precision therapeutics targeting TRAIL death receptors are being evaluated as novel anti-cancer agents, while in parallel highly specific proteasome inhibitors have gained approval as drugs. TRAIL-dependent signalling and proteasomal control of cellular proteostasis are intricate processes, and their interplay can be exploited to enhance therapeutic killing of cancer cells in combination therapies. This review provides detailed insights into the complex signalling of TRAIL-induced pathways and the activities of the proteasome. It explores their core mechanisms of action, pharmaceutical druggability, and describes how their interplay can be strategically leveraged to enhance cell death responses in cancer cells. Offering this comprehensive and timely overview will allow to navigate the complexity of the processes governing cell death mechanisms in TRAIL- and proteasome inhibitor-based treatment conditions.

Glioblastoma, from disease understanding towards optimal cell-based in vitro models

Background

Glioblastoma (GBM) patients are notoriously difficult to treat and ultimately all succumb to disease. This unfortunate scenario motivates research into better characterizing and understanding this disease, and into developing novel research tools by which potential novel therapeutics and treatment options initially can be evaluated pre-clinically. Here, we provide a concise overview of glioblastoma epidemiology, disease classification, the challenges faced in the treatment of glioblastoma and current novel treatment strategies. From this, we lead into a description and assessment of advanced cell-based models that aim to narrow the gap between pre-clinical and clinical studies. Such invitro models are required to deliver reliable and meaningful data for the development and pre-validation of novel therapeutics and treatments.

Conclusions

The toolbox for GBM cell-based models has expanded substantially, with the possibility of 3D printing tumour tissues and thereby replicating invivo tissue architectures now looming on the horizon. A comparison of experimental cell-based model systems and techniques highlights advantages and drawbacks of the various tools available, based on which cell-based models and experimental approaches best suited to address a diversity of research questions in the glioblastoma research field can be selected.