While distant metastases are rare in patients with primary brain malignancies, local growth and invasion are common and life-threatening. Regional infiltration is responsible for the failure of local therapies, resulting in tumor recurrence, progression, and death. The process of invasion requires cellular adhesion, local proteolysis and migration. CAI, carboxyamide-triazole, is an anticancer agent developed as an inhibitor of selected signal transduction pathways. Studies on the effects of CAI on human glioblastoma growth and invasiveness are presented. CAI inhibited proliferation of 6 of 8 cell lines tested in a dose-dependent fashion in vitro (IC50 range 1.5-44 microM), with no effect on the U373 line. Inhibition of adhesion to tissue culture plastic was observed for the H4, T98G, and U373 lines pretreated with CAI; H4 and T98G were inhibited in adhesion to collagen type IV. Incubation with CAI decreased production of the 72 kDa and 92 kDa type IV collagenases in all cell lines, ranging from 16 to 93% inhibition. These observations show that the effects of CAI on cell line behavior can vary between lines that are similar in origin. Despite variability in the inhibitory effects for proliferation and adhesion, CAI is consistently able to inhibit the invasive phenotype of all glioma cell lines in vitro using the Matrigel barrier assay (IC50 range 13-28 microM). These observations suggest that CAI may have benefit in the treatment of gliomas and high grade astrocytomas.