Glioblastoma resists
chemoradiotherapy, then, recurs to be a fatal space-occupying lesion. The recurrence is caused by re-growing cell populations such as
glioma stem cells (GSCs), suggesting that GSC populations should be targeted. This study addressed whether a novel anti-
cancer drug,
OTS964, an inhibitor for T-LAK cell originated
protein kinase (TOPK), is effective in reducing the size of the heterogeneous GSC populations, a power-law coded heterogeneous GSC populations consisting of
glioma sphere (GS) clones, by detailing quantitative growth properties. We found that
OTS964 killed GS clones while suppressing the growth of surviving GS clones, thus identifying clone-eliminating and growth-disturbing efficacies of
OTS964. The efficacies led to a significant size reduction in GS populations in a dose-dependent manner. The surviving GS clones reconstructed GS populations in the following generations; the recovery of GS populations fits a recurrence after the
chemotherapy. The recovering GS clones resisted the clone-eliminating effect of
OTS964 in sequential exposure during the growth recovery. However, surprisingly, the resistant properties of the recovered-GS clones had been plastically canceled during self-renewal, and then the GS clones had become re-sensitive to
OTS964. Thus,
OTS964 targets GSCs to eliminate them or suppress their growth, resulting in shrinkage of the power-law coded GSC populations. We propose a
therapy focusing on long-term control in recurrence of
glioblastoma via reducing the size of the GSC populations by
OTS964.