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Characterization and chemosensitivity of two cell lines derived from human glioblastomas

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Summary

We have characterized two human glioblastoma cell lines, which were designated as YH cells and AM cells. The two cell lines maintained morphological appearance observed in the primary culture and immunohis-tochemically expressed glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and S-100 protein. Population doubling time for YH cells and AM cells indicated 30 hours and 25 hours, respectively, in an exponential phase of culture. Inoculation of AM cells into athymic nude mice formed large tumors at a high incidence. As with chemo-sensitivity to chloroethylnitrosourea, O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) activity was measured inin vitro cultured cells as well as tumor specimens obtained at surgery. YH cells showed a high MGMT activity of 1196 fmol/mg and drug resistance to 1-(4-amino-2-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)methyl-3-(2-cloroethyl)-3-nitrosourea hydrochloride (ACNU) using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. YH tumor specimens indicated an MGMT activity of 301 fmol/mg, which reflected poor effectiveness of ACNU chemotherapy in the clinical evaluation. AM cells had an extremely low MGMT activity of 16 fmol/mg and were vulnerable to ACNU. Original tumor specimens of AM cells however expressed a high value of 628 fmol/mg. Considering that ACNU chemotherapy was not effective in the both patients, an MGMT activity of original tumors related with responsiveness to ACNU. Discrepancy in an MGMT activity between thein vitro cell lines and the respective tumor specimens comes from selection of ACNU-sensitive cells or alteration in biological characteristics during long term culture. These results suggest that cell lines derived human brain tumors are useful targets for understanding the chemosensitivity of human malignant gliomas and for establishing a pertinent chemosensitivity test.

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  1. Neurosurgical Service, Akita University Hospital, Akita, Japan

    Ichiro Izumu, Katsuyoshi Mineura, Katsuo Watanabe & Masayoshi Kowada

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  1. Ichiro Izumu
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  2. Katsuyoshi Mineura
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  3. Katsuo Watanabe
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  4. Masayoshi Kowada
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Izumu, I., Mineura, K., Watanabe, K. et al. Characterization and chemosensitivity of two cell lines derived from human glioblastomas. J Neuro-Oncol 17, 111–121 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01050213

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