title: A paired comparison between glioblastoma "stem cells" and differentiated cells.
abstract: Cancer stem cells (CSC) have been postulated to be responsible for the key features of a malignancy and its maintenances, as well as therapy resistance, while differentiated cells are believed to make up the rapidly growing tumour bulk. It is therefore important to understand the characteristics of those two distinct cell populations in order to devise treatment strategies which effectively target both cohorts, in particular with respect to cancers, such as glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain tumour in adults, with a mean patient survival of 12-15 months. Importantly, therapeutic improvements have not been forthcoming in the last decade. In this study we compare key features of three pairs of glioblastoma cell populations, each pair consisting of stem cell-like and differentiated cells derived from an individual patient. Our data suggest that while growth rates and expression of key survival- and apoptosis-mediating proteins are more similar according to differentiation status than genetic similarity, we found no intrinsic differences in response to standard therapeutic interventions, namely exposure to radiation or the alkylating agent temozolomide. Interestingly, we could demonstrate that both stem cell-like and differentiated cells possess the ability to form stem cell-containing tumours in immunocompromised mice and that differentiated cells could potentially be dedifferentiated to potential stem cells. Taken together our data suggest that the differences between tumour stem cell and differentiated cell are particular fluent in glioblastoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.|Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.|Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ströbele
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nonnenmacher
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Markus D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Siegelin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tepper
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stroh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hasslacher
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Enzenmüller
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Gudrun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Strauss
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Baumann
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.|Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Karpel-Massler
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Mike-Andrew
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Westhoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus-Michael
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Debatin
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Marc-Eric
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Halatsch
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015153:Blotting, Western; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D053938:DNA Fragmentation; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000473:pathology*; D064593:Heterografts; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
keywords: brain tumour; cancer stem cell; glioblastoma