However, it is difficult to treat malignant glioma with p53 gene therapy alone because of problems with resistance or a less-than-satisfactory response to the treatment.
Since heterogeneity in p53 expression is common in evolving gliomas, the present findings suggest that Ad.mda-7 may, in many instances, prove more beneficial for the gene-based therapy of malignant gliomas than administration of wild-type p53.
Paraffin-embedded specimens of malignant gliomas from children treated in the Children's Cancer Group study CCG-945 were assessed by mutational analysis of TP53 (121 specimens) and immunohistochemical analysis of p53 (115 specimens).
The P53 pathway is, therefore, disrupted in 81.8% of malignant gliomas (WHO grades III and IV), either by mutation of the p53 gene (31.8%) or by p14arf deletion (54.5%).
To elucidate the involvement of murine-double-minute (mdm)2 gene amplifications and mutations of the tumor suppressor gene p53 in the tumorigenesis of malignant gliomas we analyzed a series of 75 glioblastomas.
In conclusion, heterogeneity of the cellular subpopulations of malignant glioma in p53 status, variable and insufficient gene delivery to tumor, and adenoviral toxicity to brain at higher doses may be limiting factors to be solved in developing adenovirus-p53 gene therapy for malignant gliomas.
Additional analyses revealed that the malignant gliomas with MDM4 amplification and overexpression carried neither mutations in conserved regions of the TP53 gene nor amplification of the MDM2 gene.
The p53 gene is thought to function abnormally in the majority of malignant gliomas, although it has been demonstrated to be mutated in only approximately 30%.
In summary, combination either with other chemotherapy drugs, with abrogators of the G2/M checkpoint, with wild-type p53 gene transfer was not a promising approach for a taxol-based combination chemotherapy regimen in malignant glioma.
Combined inactivation of CDKN2A and CDKN2B, i.e., loss of both p16 and p15 as well as p14(ARF), results in disruption of two major growth control pathways involving pRB and p53 in malignant gliomas.
Using the AdCMV.p53 vector we measured the in vitro expression of p53 and the resultant effect upon U251 human malignant glioma cellular proliferation.
Here, we asked whether alterations in the p53 and RB pathways and the expression of six BCL-2 family proteins predicted acute cytotoxicity and clonogenic cell death induced by BCNU, vincristine, cytarabine, teniposide, doxorubicin, camptothecin or beta-lapachone in 12 human malignant glioma cell lines.
Infection with F/K20-Adv carrying the wild-type p53 tumor suppressor gene resulted in an enhanced level of p53 protein expression and an increased incidence of F/K20-Adv in transduction efficiency for malignant glioma, providing promising tools for gene therapy.
The p53 tumor-suppressor gene (located on chromosome 17) is frequently associated with the loss of one allele in malignant gliomas, although a large number of malignant gliomas have no p53 mutations.