The effects of purinergic receptor stimulation or agonism tend to produce inflammatory responses that may aid immune stimulation but may also provoke various immune suppression mechanisms, particularly in the tumor microenvironment.
Preclinical studies in several tumour models have shown that P2X7R targeting is potentially a very effective anticancer treatment, and many pharmaceutical companies have now developed potent and selective small molecule inhibitors of P2X7R.
These results suggest that the efficacy of BBG in inhibiting tumor growth is primarily mediated by direct actions of the compound on P2X7R in glioma cells and that pharmacological inhibition of this purinergic receptor might serve as a strategy to slow the progression of brain tumors.
We also looked for p53 mutations and mdm2 overexpression in the same panel of tumours and found them in 13 tumours, all but three of which had shown altered expression of P2XM.