Gene expression profiling of human gliomas and human glioblastoma cell lines

To identify signaling pathways that are differentially regulated in human gliomas, a microarray analysis on 30 brain tumor samples (12 primary glioblastomas (GBM), 3 secondary glioblastomas (GBM-2), 8 astrocytomas (Astro) and 7 oligodendrogliomas (Oligo)) and on 5 glioblastoma cell lines (LN018, LN215, LN229, LN319 and BS149) was performed. Normal brain tissue (NB) and normal human astrocytes (NHA) were used as a control. Kinase expression in each tumor was compared to expression in normal brain and expression values from normal human astrocytes were used as an additional control. Keywords: Kinase expression in each tumor was compared to expression in normal brain and expression values from normal human astrocytes were used as an additional control. Frozen tissue samples of human gliomas and normal brain obtained from the operating room were processed according to the guidelines of the Ethical Committee of the University Hospitals of Basel. Human brain tumor cell lines were derived from human patients. The BS149 cell line was generated at the University of Basel, Switzerland while the “LN” series were a kind gift of Erwin van Meir in Lausanne, Switzerland. Normal human astrocytes (NHAs) were purchased by Cambrex (Walkersville, MD) and cultured according to manufacturer’s recommendations.