Enriching glioma stem cells by intracranial implantation and developing clinically relevant model for therapeutic intervention

It is becoming better understood that radiation resistance in glioblastomas (GBMs) may be secondary to a self-renewing subpopulation of cells in the bulk tumor that form neurospheres in culture. This population has been referred to as Glioma stem cells (GSCs). One of the limitations regarding the use of GSCs is that these studies require fresh tumor biopsy samples obtained from patients, and can be extremely difficult to culture, propagate, and perform treatment-response assays. This report describes the generation of a self-renewing population of GSCs derived from commercially available U87 cells using NOD-SCID mice as carrier. The tumors were dissociated to obtain GSCs that demonstrate stem-like properties and high degree of chemo and radiation resistance. Pathological analysis of tumors obtained using GSCs exhibit all the histological hallmarks of human GBMs which is quite uncommon in GBM rodent models and hence could serve as a better model for pre-clinical study. We have shown that MGH87GSCs have an enhanced tumorogenicity than parental U87 and about 500 cells are sufficient to form tumors. To understand the transcriptome and accompanied proteome better, we explored the gene expression profiles of MGH87GSC and U87. We have shown that these GSCs are plastic like stem cells and can be directed towards a particular progeny within neural lineage by providing suitable growth factor. Our objective was to understand the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that control the self-renewal phenotype, asymmetric subdivision, chemo and radiation resistance and the role of the GSC niche in regulating the biological properties of GSC. Through this model we anticipate to devise therapeutic strategies to target this sub population of GSCs within GBMs to eradicate treatment resistance and tumor recurrence.

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Palanichamy K, Jacob JR, Litzenberg KT, Ray-Chaudhury A, Chakravarti A