Rapid tumor cell swelling and bursting: beware of collateral damage.

摘要

To the editor: We read with interest the article recently published in Molecular Therapy by Tan-nous and colleagues entitled "Mutant Sodium Channel for Tumor Therapy." Their aim was to determine whether expression of a constitutively active sodium (Na~+) channel in the membrane of glial tumor cells would cause efficient killing not only of the infected cells but also of the neighboring tumor cells. Indeed, this approach would take advantage of the fact that glial cells possess gap junctions: infecting one cell in one area of the tumor should result in near-instantaneous changes in all cells connected to it.