Antioxidants (Jan 2023)

Epigenetics and Metabolism Reprogramming Interplay into Glioblastoma: Novel Insights on Immunosuppressive Mechanisms

  • Filippo Torrisi,
  • Simona D’Aprile,
  • Simona Denaro,
  • Anna Maria Pavone,
  • Cristiana Alberghina,
  • Agata Zappalà,
  • Rosario Giuffrida,
  • Lucia Salvatorelli,
  • Giuseppe Broggi,
  • Gaetano Giuseppe Magro,
  • Vittorio Calabrese,
  • Nunzio Vicario,
  • Rosalba Parenti

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox12020220
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 2
p. 220

Abstract

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The central nervous system represents a complex environment in which glioblastoma adapts skillfully, unleashing a series of mechanisms suitable for its efficient development and diffusion. In particular, changes in gene expression and mutational events that fall within the domain of epigenetics interact complexly with metabolic reprogramming and stress responses enacted in the tumor microenvironment, which in turn fuel genomic instability by providing substrates for DNA modifications. The aim of this review is to analyze this complex interaction that consolidates several conditions that confer a state of immunosuppression and immunoevasion, making glioblastoma capable of escaping attack and elimination by immune cells and therefore invincible against current therapies. The progressive knowledge of the cellular mechanisms that underlie the resistance of the glioblastoma represents, in fact, the only weapon to unmask its weak points to be exploited to plan successful therapeutic strategies.

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