Study Identifies Pathway That May Cause Seizures and Shorten Survival for Patients with Severe Brain Tumors

In findings recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham identified a chemical pathway that may be associated with seizures and shorter patient survival in those with malignant gliomas. The researchers suggest that a transporter known as SXC is responsible for boosting levels of glutamate in the brains of some glioma patients. Glutamate is a vital neurotransmitter in the brain, however, increased expression of glutamate can kill healthy cells surrounding a malignant tumor — giving the tumor more room for growth. Glioma-produced glutamate may also be responsible for seizures that are present in about half of all glioma patients. “We hypothesized that the SXC glutamate transporter, and in particular a sub-unit called SLC7A11, was responsible for this increase in glutamate,” said the senior author of the study. “In both animal models and in human glioma cells, we found that approximately 50 percent of patient tumors had elevated SLC7A11 expression, and those tumors grew faster, killed more healthy cells, induced seizures and shortened overall survival than did tumors lacking this transporter.” These findings suggest that SXC is the major pathway for glutamate release from gliomas, and SLC7A11 expression predicts accelerated growth and seizures. To read more about this study, click here.