Analysis of the therapeutic effect of induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) delivered exosomes in glioblastoma cell lines

Glioblastoma, which is among the deadliest types of cancer, is a primary brain tumor with a very low survival rate. The survival rate of glioblastoma cases is very low even with current treatments due to drug resistance and difficulty crossing the blood-brain barrier. Other than the existing treatments, exosomes that can easily cross the blood-brain barrier and do not have toxic effects are promising biological tools for GBM treatment. Previous studies have shown that embryonic stem cell-derived exosomes have anti-tumorigenic effects in glioblastoma. However, it is unknown whether exosomes originating from induced pluripotent stem cells, which do not pose ethical problems as embryonic stem cells, have the same effect. Therefore, in the thesis study, induced pluripotent stem cell-derived exosomes, which closely resemble embryonic stem cells and have unlimited proliferation capacity, were applied in LN18 cells, a glioblastoma cell line; and the expression of some GBM-related genes were analyzed along with cell viability. In addition, the use of indefinitely proliferating induced pluripotent stem cells has prevented low source-dependent exosome efficiency. With the obtained data, it was observed that induced pluripotent stem cell-derived exosomes reduced GBM cell viability and acted on GBM-related genes. The results of this thesis study, which was carried out with the support of Haliç University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics for scientific research and application studies, show that induced pluripotent stem cell-derived exosomes, which been shown to have anti-GBM effects, can be a potential therapeutic tool for GBM.