NRP1 inhibition modulates radiosensitivity of medulloblastoma by targeting cancer stem cells

BACKGROUND: Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common pediatric malignant brain tumor. Despite current therapies, the morbidity and recurrent risk remains significant. Neuropilin-1 receptor (NRP1) has been implicated in the tumor progression of MB. Our recent study showed that NRP1 inhibition stimulated MB stem cells differentiation. Consequently, we hypothesized that targeting NRP1 in medulloblastoma could improve current treatments. METHODS: NRP1 inhibition with a novel peptidomimetic agent, MR438, was evaluated with radiotherapy (RT) in MB models (DAOY, D283-Med and D341-Med) in vitro on cancer stem-like cells as well as in vivo on heterotopic and orthotopic xenografts. RESULTS: We show that NRP1 inhibition by MR438 radiosensitizes MB stem-like cells in vitro. In heterotopic DAOY models, MR438 improves RT efficacy as measured by tumor growth and mouse survival. In addition, clonogenic assays after tumor dissociation showed a significant reduction in cancer stem cells with the combination treatment. In the same way, a benefit of the combined therapy was observed in the orthotopic model only for a low cumulative irradiation dose of 10 Gy but not for 20 Gy. CONCLUSIONS: Finally, our results demonstrated that targeting NRP1 with MR438 could be a potential new strategy and could limit MB progression by decreasing the stem cell number while reducing the radiation dose. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12935-022-02796-4.