A Proton-Coupled Transport System for β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyrate (HMB) in Blood-Brain Barrier Endothelial Cell Line hCMEC/D3

Functionalized liposomes: an enticing nanocarrier for management of glioma

Glioma is one of the most severe central nervous systems (CNS)-specific tumors, with rapidly growing malignant glial cells accounting for roughly half of all brain tumors and having a poor survival rate ranging from 12 to 15 months. Despite being the most often used technique for glioma therapy, conventional chemotherapy suffers from low permeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB) to anticancer drugs. When it comes to nanocarriers, liposomes are thought of as one of the most promising nanocarrier systems for glioma treatment. However, owing to BBB tight junctions, non-targeted liposomes, which passively accumulate in most cancer cells primarily via the increased permeability and retention effect (EPR), would not be suitable for glioma treatment. The surface modification of liposomes with various active targeting ligands has shown encouraging outcomes in the recent times by allowing various chemotherapy drugs to pass across the BBB and BBTB and enter glioma cells. This review article introduces by briefly outlining the landscape of glioma, its classification, and some of the pathogenic causes. Further, it discusses major barriers for delivering drugs to glioma such as the BBB, BBTB, and tumor microenvironment. It further discusses modified liposomes such as long-acting circulating liposomes, actively targeted liposomes, stimuli responsive liposomes. Finally, it highlighted the limitations of liposomes in the treatment of glioma and the various actively targeted liposomes undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of glioma.

Glioma diagnosis and therapy: Current challenges and nanomaterial-based solutions

Glioma is often referred to as one of the most dreadful central nervous system (CNS)-specific tumors with rapidly-proliferating cancerous glial cells, accounting for nearly half of the brain tumors at an annual incidence rate of 30-80 per a million population. Although glioma treatment remains a significant challenge for researchers and clinicians, the rapid development of nanomedicine provides tremendous opportunities for long-term glioma therapy. However, several obstacles impede the development of novel therapeutics, such as the very tight blood-brain barrier (BBB), undesirable hypoxia, and complex tumor microenvironment (TME). Several efforts have been dedicated to exploring various nanoformulations for improving BBB permeation and precise tumor ablation to address these challenges. Initially, this article briefly introduces glioma classification and various pathogenic factors. Further, currently available therapeutic approaches are illustrated in detail, including traditional chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgical practices. Then, different innovative treatment strategies, such as tumor-treating fields, gene therapy, immunotherapy, and phototherapy, are emphasized. In conclusion, we summarize the article with interesting perspectives, providing suggestions for future glioma diagnosis and therapy improvement.

Effects of β-Hydroxy β-Methylbutyrate Supplementation on Working Memory and Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation in Rodents

β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate (HMB), a metabolite of the essential amino acid leucine, has been shown to preserve muscle mass and strength during aging. The signaling mechanism by which HMB elicits its favorable effects on protein metabolism in skeletal muscle is also preserved in the brain. However, there are only a few studies, all at relatively high doses, addressing the effect of HMB supplementation on cognition. This study evaluated the effects of different doses of HMB on the potentiation of hippocampal synapses following the experimental induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus of behaving rats, as well as on working memory test (delayed matching-to-position, DMTP) in mice. HMB doses in rats were 225 (low), 450 (medium), and 900 (high) mg/kg body weight/day and were double in mice. Rats who received medium or high HMB doses improved LTP, suggesting that HMB administration enhances mechanisms related to neuronal plasticity. In the DMTP test, mice that received any of the tested doses of HMB performed better than the control group in the overall test with particularities depending on the dose and the task phase.