The water-selective channel aquaporin-4 (AQP4) contributes to the migration and proliferation of gliomas, and to their resistance to therapy. Here, we show, in glioma animal models, and in glioma patients, that transmembrane water-efflux rate is a sensitive and specific biomarker of AQP4 expression and can be measured via dynamic-contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging. Water-efflux rates correlated with changes in the heterogeneity of intratumoural and intertumoural AQP4 in human gliomas and following treatment with the AQP4 inhibitor TGN020. Regions with low water-efflux rates contained higher fractions of stem-like slow-cycling cells and therapy-resistant cells, suggesting that maps of water-efflux rates could be used to identify gliomas that are resistant to therapies.
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Jia et al. (2024) studied this question.
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