Skip to Content
Merck
  • Tumor Microenvironment Is Critical for the Maintenance of Cellular States Found in Primary Glioblastomas.

Tumor Microenvironment Is Critical for the Maintenance of Cellular States Found in Primary Glioblastomas.

Cancer discovery (2020-04-08)
Allison R Pine, Stefano M Cirigliano, James G Nicholson, Yang Hu, Amanda Linkous, Ken Miyaguchi, Lincoln Edwards, Richa Singhania, Theodore H Schwartz, Rohan Ramakrishna, David J Pisapia, Matija Snuderl, Olivier Elemento, Howard A Fine
ABSTRACT

Glioblastoma (GBM), an incurable tumor, remains difficult to model and more importantly to treat due to its genetic/epigenetic heterogeneity and plasticity across cellular states. The ability of current tumor models to recapitulate the cellular states found in primary tumors remains unexplored. To address this issue, we compared single-cell RNA sequencing of tumor cells from 5 patients across four patient-specific glioblastoma stem cell (GSC)-derived model types, including glioma spheres, tumor organoids, glioblastoma cerebral organoids (GLICO), and patient-derived xenografts. We find that GSCs within the GLICO model are enriched for a neural progenitor-like cell subpopulation and recapitulate the cellular states and their plasticity found in the corresponding primary parental tumors. These data demonstrate how the contribution of a neuroanatomically accurate human microenvironment is critical and sufficient for recapitulating the cellular states found in human primary GBMs, a principle that may likely apply to other tumor models. SIGNIFICANCE: It has been unclear how well different patient-derived GBM models are able to recreate the full heterogeneity of primary tumors. Here, we provide a complete transcriptomic characterization of the major model types. We show that the microenvironment is crucial for recapitulating GSC cellular states, highlighting the importance of tumor-host cell interactions.See related commentary by Luo and Weiss, p. 907.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 890.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
Anti-SOX4 antibody produced in rabbit, Prestige Antibodies® Powered by Atlas Antibodies, affinity isolated antibody, buffered aqueous glycerol solution
SKU
Pack Size
Availability
Price
Quantity