In this study, Canurta’s collaborators investigated the potential interference of cannflavins A and B, specialized metabolites found in Cannabis sativa, on the Tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) signaling pathway. Using mouse primary cortical neurons and Neuro2a cells overexpressing TrkB, the researchers found that cannflavins were able to reduce the accumulation of Activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated (Arc) protein disrupting the downstream signaling pathway of TrkB receptors.
Disruption of TrkB pathway is often observed in cerebral cancers such as in glioblastoma tumors, and known to control glioma cell growth, survival, migration, and invasion. In this sense, the researchers observed that cannflavins can block cellular processes in a TrkB stably expressing neuroblastoma cell line. This finding has big implications since aberrant activation of TrkB signal pathway may appear in other cancer types, therefore controlling its activation is being recognized as a target to control proliferation of certain cancer cells.
This research highlights the potential of cannflavins to interfere with neuronal signaling and cancer proliferation and suggests a new area of investigation for their therapeutic potential.
For those interested in learning more, we invite you to read the full paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667031323000064?via%3Dihub