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A molecularly distinct subset of glioblastoma requires serum-containing media to establish sustainable bona fide glioblastoma stem cell cultures

ABSTRACT: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequent and deadly primary malignant brain tumor. Hallmarks are extensive intra- and inter-tumor heterogeneity and highly invasive growth, which provide great challenges for treatment. Efficient therapy is lacking for GBM and the majority of patients survive less than one year from diagnosis. GBM progression and recurrence is caused by treatment-resistant glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs). GSC cultures are considered important models to use in target identification and drug screening. The current state of the art method to isolate and maintain GSC cultures that faithfully mimic the primary tumor, is to use serum-free (SF) media conditions developed for neural stem cells (NSCs). Here we have investigated the outcome of explanting 230 consecutively collected GBM patient samples under both SF and standard, serum-containing media conditions. The establishment of maintainable SF cultures (SFCs) was most frequent, but for a subgroup of GBM specimens a viable culture could only be established in serum-containing media, called exclusive serum culture (ESC). ESCs expressed nestin and SOX2, and displayed all functional characteristics of GSCs, i.e. extended proliferation, sustained self-renewal and orthotopic tumor initiation. Once adapted to the in vitro milieu they were also sustainable in SF media. Molecular analyses showed that ESCs formed a discrete group that was most related to the mesenchymal GBM subtype. This distinct subgroup of GBM that had evaded modeling under SF conditions provide unique cell models of GBM intertumor heterogeneity.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE116488 | GEO | 2019/12/20

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and most aggressive primary brain tumor in adults. The existence of a small population of stem-like tumor cells that efficiently propagate tumors and resist cytotoxic therapy is one proposed mechanism leading to the resilient behavior of tumor cells and poor prognosis. In this study, we performed an in-depth analysis of the DNA methylation landscape in GBM-derived cancer stem cells (GSCs). Parallel comparisons of primary tumors and GSC lines derived from these tumors with normal controls (a neural stem cell (NSC) line and normal brain tissue) identified groups of hyper- and hypomethylated genes that display a trend of either increasing or decreasing methylation levels in the order of controls, primary GBMs, and their counterpart GSC lines, respectively. Interestingly, concurrent promoter hypermethylation and gene body hypomethylation were observed in a subset of genes including MGMT, AJAP1 and PTPRN2. These unique DNA methylation signatures were also found in primary GBM-derived xenograft tumors indicating that they are not tissue culture-related epigenetic changes. Integration of GSC-specific epigenetic signatures with gene expression analysis further identified candidate tumor suppressor genes that are frequently down regulated in GBMs such as SPINT2, NEFM and PENK. Forced re-expression of SPINT2 reduced glioma cell proliferative capacity, anchorage independent growth, cell motility, and tumor sphere formation in vitro. The results from this study demonstrate that GSCs possess unique epigenetic signatures that may play important roles in the pathogenesis of GBM. The reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) approach (Meissner et al., 2008) was used to generate genome-wide single-base resolution CpG methylation profiles of three primary GBMs (1063T, 1133T, and 1142T) and three GSC lines (1063S, 1133S, 1142S) derived from these primary GBM tumors. The NSC line and the normal brain (NB) tissue sample were used as controls for comparison purposes. In addition, we analyzed three GBM xenograft tumor tissue samples (Mayo22, Mayo39, Mayo59) developed by Dr. Jann N. Sarkaria of Mayo Clinic.

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A molecularly distinct subset of glioblastoma requires serum-containing media to establish sustainable bona fide glioblastoma stem cell cultures

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