The Unexpected Roles of Aurora A Kinase in Gliobastoma Recurrences.

The main obstacle for the cure of glioblastoma (GBM) is systematic tumor recurrence after treatment. More than 90 % of GBM tumors are indeed recurrent within 5 years after diagnosis and treatment. We urgently need new therapies to specifically address these deadly relapses. A major advance in the understanding of GBM recurrence is the identification of GBM-Initiating Cells (GIC), characterized by their abilities for self-renewal, multilineage differentiation, and proliferation. It appears that these features of GIC could be modulated by the mitotic kinase Aurora A (AurA). Indeed, besides its role in mitosis, AurA has recently been identified to regulate alternative functions like cell polarity, asymmetric cell division, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition. All these properties may help explain GBM therapeutic resistance and recurrence. In this review, we make the hypothesis that AurA could significantly contribute to GBM recurrences and we focus on the possible roles of AurA in GIC.