A review of the role of stem cells in the development and treatment of glioma.

The neurosurgical management of patients with intrinsic glial cancers is one of the most rapidly evolving areas of practice. This has been fuelled by advances in surgical technique not only in cytoreduction but also in drug delivery. Further innovation will depend on a deeper understanding of the biology of the disease and an appreciation of the limitations of current knowledge.

Glioblastoma cell lines derived under serum-free conditions can be used as an in vitro model system to evaluate therapeutic response.

We provide evidence that six glioblastoma cell lines derived and maintained under serum-free conditions secrete VEGF and four also expressed VEGF(R2). Expression of VEGF(R2) was associated with reduced proliferation in response to anti-VEGF antibodies. Spontaneous loss of VEGF(R2) over passage was associated with loss of this anti-proliferative effect.

An efficient method for derivation and propagation of glioblastoma cell lines that conserves the molecular profile of their original tumours.

A growing body of evidence suggests that glioma stem-like cells are more representative of their parent tumours when cultured under defined serum-free conditions with the mitogens epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF). However, culturing these cells as free-floating spheroids can result in difficulty in efficiently deriving and propagating cell lines. We have combined neurosphere and monolayer culture techniques to improve the efficiency with which cells can be derived from clinical tumour samples under defined serum-free conditions.