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Isolation and Characterization of Tumorigenic,
Stem-like Neural Precursors from Human Glioblastoma
Rossella Galli1, Elena Binda1,
Ugo Orfanelli1, Barbara Cipelletti1,
Angela Gritti1, Simona De Vitis2,
Roberta Fiocco1, Chiara Foroni1,
Francesco Dimeco3,4 and Angelo Vescovi1,5
1Stem Cell Research Institute and 2Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics, H. S. Raffaele, Milan, Italy; 3National Neurological Institute "C. Besta," Milan, Italy; 4Department of Neurological Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore,
Maryland; and 5Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology,
University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Received 4/29/04; revised 7/10/04; accepted 7/26/04.
Transformed stem cells have been isolated from some human cancers.
We report that, unlike other brain cancers, the lethal glioblastoma
multiforme contains neural precursors endowed with all of the critical
features expected from neural stem cells.
Similar, yet not identical, to their normal neural stem cell
counterpart, these precursors emerge as unipotent (astroglial) in
vivo and multipotent (neuronal-astroglial-oligodendroglial) in
culture.
More importantly, these cells can act as tumor-founding cells down
to the clonal level and can establish tumors that closely resemble
the main histologic, cytologic, and architectural features of the
human disease, even when challenged through serial transplantation.
Thus, cells possessing all of the characteristics expected from tumor
neural stem cells seem to be involved in the growth and recurrence of
adult human glioblastomas multiforme.
© 2004 American Association for Cancer Research
Source: http://intl-cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/64/19/7011
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