Precursor States of Brain Tumor Initiating Cell Lines Are Predictive of Survival in Xenografts and Associated with Glioblastoma Subtypes

•BTICs are extensively characterized using a stem cell approach•Two groups of BTIC lines are identified: stem-like and progenitor-like•Progenitor-like BTICs lead to strikingly shorter survival in xenografted mice•Stem- and progenitor-like profiles associate with proneural and mesenchymal subtypes

SummaryIn glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), brain-tumor-initiating cells (BTICs) with cancer stem cell characteristics have been identified and proposed as primordial cells responsible for disease initiation, recurrence, and therapeutic resistance. However, the extent to which individual, patient-derived BTIC lines reflect the heterogeneity of GBM remains poorly understood. Here we applied a stem cell biology approach and compared self-renewal, marker expression, label retention, and asymmetric cell division in 20 BTIC lines. Through cluster analysis, we identified two subgroups of BTIC lines with distinct precursor states, stem- or progenitor-like, predictive of survival after xenograft. Moreover, stem and progenitor transcriptomic signatures were identified, which showed a strong association with the proneural and mesenchymal subtypes, respectively, in the TCGA cohort. This study proposes a different framework for the study and use of BTIC lines and provides precursor biology insights into GBM.

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