Brain tumor cells make more of the protein a drug blocks
Original title: EGFR upregulation drives signaling reactivation during EGFR inhibition in glioblastoma without broad kinome rewiring
How far along is this research?
This is a preprint. Other scientists have not checked it yet, so treat it as an early signal rather than an answer.
This was done only with cells in a lab dish, not in people.
The short version
In lab dishes, glioblastoma: The fastest-growing type of glioma (grade 4). Treatment usually starts soon after diagnosis: surgery first, then radiation and chemotherapy. See the glossary cells fought back against a targeted drug by making more of its target.
What was studied. Researchers checked 29 glioblastoma: The fastest-growing type of glioma (grade 4). Treatment usually starts soon after diagnosis: surgery first, then radiation and chemotherapy. See the glossary cell lines grown from patients' tumors. They picked five of them and treated the cells with drugs that block a protein called EGFR.
What they found. The drugs slowed the cells that leaned most on EGFR, and EGFR signals dropped at first. After 24 hours, those signals came back part way. The cells did not switch on a wide set of other proteins. They simply made more EGFR.
What this means, and what it doesn't
What it could mean: This may help explain why EGFR drugs have not worked well for glioblastoma: The fastest-growing type of glioma (grade 4). Treatment usually starts soon after diagnosis: surgery first, then radiation and chemotherapy. See the glossary so far. The problem may be how much EGFR the cells make, not a switch to some other pathway. That idea could shape how future drugs are designed and tested.
What it doesn't mean: This does not mean there is a new treatment. The work was done on cells in dishes in a lab, not in people. No one was treated and no one got better in this study. It is not a cure and it is not a promise of one. Work like this sits at the very start of a long road, and many years of testing would come before it could change care.
Source: bioRxiv (preprint), August 14, 2026 · Read the original
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