Glioblastoma is the most common and lethal
brain tumor associated with only 12% median survival rate of patients. Despite the development of advanced surgical, radiation or use of combinations of anti-
cancer drugs, treatment for
glioblastoma patients is still a challenge. The major contributing factor in
glioblastoma progression and resistive nature is its ability to evade the immune surveillance. Hence, modulating the immune system in
glioblastoma tumors could be an important strategy for anticancer
therapeutics.
Penfluridol, an
antipsychotic drug has been shown to have anti-
cancer properties in our recently published studies. The present study evaluates the immune response of
penfluridol in
glioblastoma tumors. Our results demonstrated that
penfluridol treatment significantly suppressed
glioblastoma tumor growth. Our current results demonstrated about 72% suppression of myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) with
penfluridol treatment in mouse bearing U87MG
glioblastoma tumors. MDSCs are known to increase regulatory T cells (Treg), which are immunosuppressive in nature and suppresses M1 macrophages that are
tumor suppressive in nature. Our results also showed suppression of regulatory T cells as well as elevation of M1 macrophages with
penfluridol treatment by 58% and 57% respectively. Decrease in CCL4 as well as IFNγ with
penfluridol treatment was also observed indicating decrease in overall
tumor inflammation. This is the first report demonstrating immune modulations by
penfluridol treatment associated with
glioblastoma tumor growth suppression prompting further investigation to establish
penfluridol as a treatment option for
glioblastoma patients.