Abstract
Recent studies have identified gene signatures in malignant tumors that are associated with human embryonic stem cells, suggesting a molecular relationship between aggressive cancers and pluripotency. Here, we characterize neural precursors (NPs) derived from transformed human embryonic stem cells (N-t-hESCs) that exhibit neoplastic features of human brain tumors. NPs derived from t-hESCs have enhanced cell proliferation and an inability to mature toward the astrocytic lineage, compared with progeny derived from normal human embryonic stem cells (N-hESCs) independent of adherent or neurosphere outgrowth. Intracranial transplantation of NPs derived from N-t-hESCs and N-hESCs into NOD SCID mice revealed development of neuroectoderm tumors exclusively from the N-t-hESCs NPs and not from normal N-hESCs. These tumors infiltrated the ventricles and the cerebellum of recipient mice and displayed morphological, phenotypic, and molecular features associated with classic medulloblastoma including retention of a pluripotent signature. Importantly, N-t-hESCs did not exhibit cytogenetic changes associated with medulloblastoma, suggesting that aberrant cellular and molecular properties precede the acquisition of karyotypic changes thus underscoring the value of this model system of human medulloblastoma. Our study demonstrates that NPs from a starting population of neoplastic human pluripotent parent cells possess brain tumor-initiating cell capacity, thereby providing a model system to investigate initiation and progression of primitive human neural cancers that are difficult to assess using somatic sources.