Proactive Investors - MGC Pharmaceuticals Ltd (LON:MXCM), a developer of plant-based treatments, said a peer-reviewed academic paper on its glioblastoma research has been published by the journal MDPI.
The glioblastoma research is a collaboration between MGC Pharma and the Slovenian research university National Institute of Biology.
The research paper, entitled ‘The Cytotoxic Effects of Cannabidiol and Cannabigerol on Glioblastoma Stem Cells May Mostly Involve GPR55 and TRPV1 Signalling', tests cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG) extracts provided by MGC Pharma, and their impact on glioblastoma cells.
The study found that GPR55 and TRPV1 receptors are the best targets for the antagonistic cannabinoids CBD and CBG (in an optimised mixture) to eliminate glioblastoma (GBM) stem cells.
This approach avoids using psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is potentially harmful, particularly in older GBM patients, and should be further tested in animal experiments and clinical trials.
Glioblastoma is a fast-growing and aggressive form of cancer, usually starting in the brain. Currently only 5%-10% of glioblastoma patients live beyond five years following diagnosis, MGC noted.
MDPI is the largest open-access publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals, publishing nearly 400 open-access journals, and the fifth-largest publisher overall in terms of journal paper output. The article has been published as a Molecular Cancer Biology research paper.
The article is open-access and can be accessed here