Astrocytes, members of the glial family, interact through the exchange of soluble factors or by directly contacting neurons and other brain cells, such as microglia and endothelial cells. Astrocytic projections interact with vessels and act as additional elements of the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). By mechanisms not fully understood, astrocytes can undergo oncogenic transformation and give rise to gliomas. The tumors take advantage of the BBB to ensure survival and continuous growth. A glioma can develop into a very aggressive tumor, the glioblastoma (GBM), characterized by a highly heterogeneous cell population (including tumor stem cells), extensive proliferation and migration. Nevertheless, gliomas can also give rise to slow growing tumors and in both cases, the afflux of blood, via BBB is crucial. Glioma cells migrate to different regions of the brain guided by the extension of blood vessels, colonizing the healthy adjacent tissue. In the clinical context, GBM can lead to tumor-derived seizures, which represent a challenge to patients and clinicians, since drugs used for its treatment must be able to cross the BBB. Uncontrolled and fast growth also leads to the disruption of the chimeric and fragile vessels in the tumor mass resulting in peritumoral edema. Although hormonal therapy is currently used to control the edema, it is not always efficient. In this review we comment the points cited above, considering the importance of the BBB and the concerns that arise when this barrier is affected.

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The present study was designed to evaluate the metabolic effects of a high-fat diet based on trienantin, an uncommon medium-odd-chain triacylglycerol. Male Wistar rats (33.37 6 5.69 g) (n = 3610) were maintained for 6 weeks on a control diet (7 g soya oil/100 g) or a high-fat diet based on trienantin (40 g margarine, 4 g soya oil and 25.79 g trienantin/100 g), or a high-fat diet based on soya oil (40 g margarine and 29.79 g soya oil/100 g). The serum lipid profile, hepatic function and injury markers, and renal function and injury markers were determined. Samples of liver, stomach, kidney and small intestine were collected for histological analysis. The animals fed the high-fat diet based on trienantin exhibited a lower body weight gain in relation to the control group, between the second and fifth week of the experiment. There were no differences amongst the biochemical markers of the three groups (p !0.05). Lipid infiltration of the hepatocytes was detected in a similar manner in all groups (p !0.05). These data demonstrate that the high-fat diet based on trienantin did not promote adverse metabolic effects under the conditions of this study. This could serve as a reference parameter in the evaluation of the safety of its therapeutic application.