Tumor-associated reactive astrocytes aid the evolution of immunosuppressive environment in glioblastoma.

ABSTRACT: Reactive astrocytes evolve after brain injury, inflammatory and degenerative diseases, whereby they undergo transcriptomic re-programming. In malignant brain tumors, their function and crosstalk to other components of the environment is poorly understood. Here we report a distinct transcriptional phenotype of reactive astrocytes from glioblastoma linked to JAK/STAT pathway activation. Subsequently, we investigate the origin of astrocytic transformation by a microglia loss-of-function model in a human organotypic slice model with injected tumor cells. RNA-seq based gene expression analysis of astrocytes reveals a distinct astrocytic phenotype caused by the coexistence of microglia and astrocytes in the tumor environment, which leads to a large release of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as

SUBMITTER: Henrik Heiland D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6559986 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature