Glioblastoma is associated with extensive accelerated brain ageing

Abstract

Progressive neurocognitive dysfunction is the leading cause of a reduced quality of life in patients with primary brain tumours. Understanding the mechanisms underlying cognitive impairments that occur in response to a brain tumour and its treatment is essential to improve patients quality of life. Here, we show that normal-appearing non-tumour brain regions of patients with glioblastoma display hallmarks of accelerated ageing and share multiple features with Alzheimers disease patients. Integrated transcriptomic and tissue analysis shows that normal-appearing brain tissue from glioblastoma patients has a significant overlap with brain tissue from Alzheimers disease patients, revealing shared mitochondrial and neuronal dysfunction, and proteostasis deregulation. Overall, the brain of glioblastoma patients undergoes Alzheimers disease-like accelerated ageing, providing novel or repurposed therapeutic targets for managing brain cancer-related side effects.