Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Rooting out resistance

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 7, page 909 (2006)Cite this article

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Glioblastomas are aggressive brain tumours that rapidly become resistant to radiotherapy. Jeremy Rich and colleagues now show that glioma stem cells are the root of this problem.

Glioblastomas present as diffuse tumours that invade normal brain tissue, and patients who are diagnosed with this disease have a median survival of less than 12 months. Glioblastomas recur after treatment with radiation, but often as focal masses, suggesting that only a small proportion of cells are responsible for recurrence. Both normal brain stem cells and brain tumour stem cells have recently been characterized, and cells that express prominin 1 (also known as CD133) often show stem-cell-like characteristics.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Bao, S. et al. Glioma stem cells promote radioresistance by preferential activation of the DNA damage response. Nature 18 October 2006 (doi: 10.1038/nature05236)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Senior Editor, Nature Reviews Cancer,

    Nicola McCarthy

Authors
  1. Nicola McCarthy
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McCarthy, N. Rooting out resistance. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 909 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2051

Download citation

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2051

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing