Jakub Paś

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) accounts for approximately 12-15% of intracranial neoplasms. The GBM remains refractory to therapy because of tumor heterogenity, local invasion, and non-uniform vascular permeability to drugs. Patients with GBM have the median survival of approximately 8-10 months, and for those cases where tumor recurs, the average time of tumor progression after therapy is only eight weeks. A combination of different treatment modes as surgery and chemo- or/and radiotherapy extend survival only for a short time, if any. Recently, tenascin-C (TN-C) as a dominant epitope in glioblastoma has been discovered. Tenascin-C is a multidomain large extracellular matrix glycoprotein composed of six monomers. The size of tenascin-C monomers (180-250kDa) varies as a result of an alternative splicing of the fibronectin repeats at the pre-mRNA level. For the first time we applied bioinformatic and molecular modeling procedures, for detailed analysis of the organization of tenascin-C a