New technique allows anti-breast cancer drugs to cross blood-brain barrier
To facilitate drug delivery to brain metastases, John Connell of the CRUK/MRC Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, UK, and colleagues utilized the human pro-inflammatory cytokine, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which they had previously shown could disrupt the BBB in rat brains. The researchers first verified the expression of TNF receptors in mouse as well as human brain metastases by immunohistochemistry. They then induced brain metastases in mice by injection of mouse breast carcinoma cells labeled with green fluorescent protein…