Malignant tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) are among cancers with the poorest prognosis, indicated by their association with tumors of high-level morbidity and mortality. Gliomas, the most common primary CNS tumors that arise from neuroglial stem or progenitor cells, have estimated annual incidence of 6.6 per 100,000 individuals in the USA, and 3.5 per 100,000 individuals in Taiwan. Tumor invasion and metastasis are the major contributors to the deaths in cancer patients. Therapeutic goals including cancer stem cells (CSC), phenotypic shifts, EZH2/AXL/TGF-β axis activation, miRNAs and exosomes are relevant to GBM metastasis to develop novel targeted therapeutics for GBM and other brain cancers. Herein, we highlight tumor metastasis in our understanding of gliomas, and illustrate novel exosome therapeutic approaches in glioma, thereby paving the way towards innovative therapies in neuro-oncology.

Neurodegenerative disorders, chronic diseases that can severely affect the patient's daily life, include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases. However, these diseases all have the common characteristic that they are due to degenerative irreversibility, and thus no efficient drugs or therapy methods can mitigate symptoms completely. Stem cell therapy, such as adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs), is a promising treatment for incurable disorders. In this review, we summarized the previous studies using ADSCs to treat neurodegenerative disorders, as well as their therapeutic mechanisms. We also suggested possible expectations for future human clinical trials involving minimized intracerebroventricular combined with intravenous administration, using different cell lineages to finish complementary therapy as well as change the extracellular matrix to create a homing niche. Depending on successful experiments in relevant neurodegenerative disorders models, this could form the theoretical basis for future human clinical trials.

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