title: Identification of U251 glioma stem cells and their heterogeneous stem-like phenotypes.
abstract: Glioblastoma, the most common and lethal type of intracranial tumor, is characterized by extensive heterogeneity at the cellular and molecular levels. The discovery of glioma stem cells (GSCs) lends support to a new paradigm in tumor biology. In the present study, we aimed to clarify the validity of using U251 glioma cells as a source of GSC culture and critically evaluate the heterogeneous stem-like phenotypes of these cells when grown under various culture conditions. The findings suggested that U251 cells (U251-Adh, U251-SC-Sph and U251-SC-Adh) showed distinctive growth patterns and self-renewal capacity. The U251 glioma cell line is endowed with certain GSC phenotypes that may be moderately enrichedin vitrowhen transferred into stem cell culture conditions, although this is not sustainable and reproduciblein vivo. Notably, glioma cells are plastic in response to their environment. The reversible adaptive plasticity contributes to the GSC heterogeneity, which may lead to the heterogeneity of glioblastoma and the differing responses to current therapies. Therefore, an improved understanding of GSC heterogeneity is urgently required for designing more effective therapies against this highly malignant brain tumor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery and Chinese-German Lab of Molecular Neurooncology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hebei 430030, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Suojun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ruifan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Dongsheng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lei
keywords: U251; glioma stem cells; heterogeneity; phenotype