Abstract
Patient-derived primary cell culture and xenograft are essential tools for translational research for glioblastoma. However, characteristics of each patient derived cell line and xenograft is not extensively studied. In this study, we aim to analyze the characteristics of our glioblastoma patient-derived cell lines and xenografts based on cell surface markers and their differentiation patterns. We have established 20 glioblastoma primary cell culture lines by serum free medium containing EGF and bFGF and found that primary cell culture lines could be classified based on the expression of CD133 and CD44. Four cell lines had high expression of both CD133 and CD44. Eleven cell lines had high expression of only CD44, three cell lines had high expression of only CD133, two cell lines had low expression of both CD133 and CD44. In addition when we induce differentiation, these cell lines showed differentiation to both glial and neuronal differentiation, but differentiation patterns were different depending on each cell line. Four cell lines showed predominant neuronal differentiation and others showed predominant glial differentiation. We next investigated in vivo characteristics of glioblastoma patient derived xenografts from these established cell lines. We have injected these cell lines into NOD/Shi-scid IL2Rγ KO mouse and histopathologically analyzed characteristics of xenografts. Each xenograft well recapitulated histological features of original patients’ tumors and tumor cells remarkably invade through subventricular zone. These results suggest that glioblastoma patient derived primary cell lines and xenografts have different characteristics of cell surface marker expressions and differentiation patterns, thus can classify these cell lines depending on cell surface marker expressions and differentiation patterns. Further analysis is needed to examine the biological importance of the differences in cell surface marker expressions and differentiation patterns.