Engineered fat cells slip through blood-brain barrier to illuminate early-stage tumors

Cancerous growths that arise from the supportive tissue of the brain, known as gliomas, account for around 30 percent of all brain tumors and carry an average survival rate of just 14 months.

These aggressive tumors are difficult to detect through MRI, largely due to the the protective blood-brain barrier that stops contrast agents from entering and lighting them up. But a new type of engineered fat cell could make them more treatable, by penetrating the barrier and revealing their presence at a much earlier stage of development.

Gliomas don't show up on an MRI until they are already well developed, as a result of the contrasting agents that would reveal them earlier being unable to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. This protective membrane surrounds vessels in the brain to stop 98 percent of therapeutic molecules from entering. Only when a tumor has reached a certain size will it disrupt the blood-brain barrier enough to allow the contrast agent through.

Unfortunately, this comes too late for the second, deadly wave of gliomas to be caught before causing irreparable damage. But researchers at Penn State College of Medicine are claiming to have found an early route through the blood-brain barrier. They have developed a new type of fat cell that contains a commonly used contrast agent called Magnevist, and embedded on its surface proteins that target receptors on glioma cells.

The researchers found that the engineered fat cell was able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier in mice and seek out early stage tumors. The researchers are not yet clear on how exactly the cell is able to sneak through the barrier, but claim that it does so in a safe manner, with the mice showing no harm from the treatment.