Glioblastoma multiforme cancer stem cells from different patients exhibit consistent gene expression and mechanical phenotypes across distinct states in culture

Cancer stem cells are responsible for the regenerative properties of tumors, manifested as recurrence and metastasis. They can adopt different states, some of which may not be sensitive to current therapies. Modeling distinct states in culture will contribute towards efficient drug discovery. We previously demonstrated that putative cancer stem cells from multiple glioblastoma patients can be efficiently maintained under different signal transduction states by means of different culture conditions; each state is marked by different levels of STAT3 phosphorylation and Hes3 expression. Here we perform global gene expression and mechanical analyses on three primary cell lines to better characterize each state and to address their broad relevance. We report consistent gene expression profiles and mechanical phenotypes among the three lines across different states. Our data argues for the use of specific culture conditions to model distinct states, all of which may be useful in therapeutic design.