Migrating glioma cells express stem cell markers and give rise to new tumors upon xenografting

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequent and malignant brain tumor with an overall survival of only 14.6 months. Although these tumors are treated with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy recurrence is inevitable. A critical population of tumor cells in terms of therapy, the so-called cancer stem cells (CSCs), has been identified in gliomas and many other cancers. These tumor cells have a stem cell-like phenotype and are suggested to be responsible for tumor growth, chemo- and radio-resistance as well as recurrence. However, functional evidence for migrating glioma cells having a stem cell-like phenotype is currently lacking. We used microarray to evaluate gene expression in five different patient derived glioblastoma cell cultures. From these five patient we investigated the gene expression in migrating and non-migrating tumor cells. The isolation of migrating and non-migrating tumorcells was done in a novel in vitro migration assay.