Viability of glioblastoma stem cells is effectively reduced by diisothiocyanate-derived mercapturic acids.

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive tumor of the central nervous system and is manifested by diffuse invasion of glioblastoma stem cells into the healthy tissue, chemoresistance and recurrence. Despite aggressive therapy, consisting of maximal surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy with temozolomide (Temodal®), life expectancy of patients with glioblastoma is typically less than 15 months. In general, natural isothiocyanates isolated from plants of the Cruciferae family are selectively cytotoxic to tumor cells. It has been demonstrated previously that diisothiocyanate-derived mercapturic acids are highly cytotoxic to colon cancer cells. In the present study, the application of diisothiocyanate-derived mercapturic acids led to a decrease in the viability of an established glioblastoma cell line, primary patient-derived sphere-cultured stem cell-enriched cell populations (SCs), and cells differentiated from SCs. Consequently, targeting glioblastoma cells by diisothiocyanate-derived mercapturic acids is a promising approach to restrict tumor cell growth and may be a novel therapeutic intervention for the treatment of glioblastoma.

Spliced analogues of trypsin inhibitor SFTI-1 and their application for tracing proteolysis and delivery of cargos inside the cells.

A series of analogues of trypsin inhibitor SFTI-1 were designed and synthesized to monitor peptide splicing. In the middle part of the SFTI-1 analogues, which is released upon incubation with proteinase, the RGD sequence or an acceptor of fluorescence for FRET was introduced. The results of studies with trypsin confirmed that the designed analogues underwent peptide splicing. Furthermore, we showed that a FRET displaying SFTI-1 analogue was internalized into the HaCaT keratinocytes, where it was degraded. Therefore, both proteolysis and the reduction of the disulfide bridge of the peptide took place. As a result, such analogues are a convenient tool to trace the proteolytic activity inside the cell. However, the cytotoxicity of SFTI-1 analogues grafted with the RGD sequence did not correlate with their susceptibility to peptide splicing. Nevertheless, these peptides were slightly more active than the reference peptide (GRGDNP). Interestingly, one of the analogues assigned as [desSer6 ]VI, under experimental conditions, appeared significantly more cytotoxic towards cancer cells U87-MG in contrast to the reference peptide.