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Cancer Resources > Cancer News > Cancer News from Reuters > Reuters Cancer News > 2006 > August

Stem cell-like glioma cells promote tumor angiogenesis

Will Boggs, MD

Last Updated: 2006-08-23 14:50:34 -0400 (Reuters Health)


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Stem cell-like glioma cells promote tumor angiogenesis by secreting elevated levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), according to a report in the August 15th Cancer Research.

"We cannot treat the cancer as a whole effectively without understanding that some of the cancer cells are more important than others," Dr. Jeremy N. Rich from Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina told Reuters Health. "We are already studying these stem-like cells in determining the response to other therapies, including radiation and chemotherapy."

Dr. Rich and colleagues examined the potential of stem cell-like glioma cells, isolated from human glioblastoma biopsy specimens, to support tumor angiogenesis.

The stem cell-like cells expressed VEGF at levels 10- to 20-fold higher than ordinary glioma cells, the authors report, under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions.

Medium from stem cell-like glioma cells cultures induced endothelial cell migration and tube formation, both of which were prevented by the addition of bevacizumab to neutralize VEGF, the results indicate.

Bevacizumab also inhibited the growth of xenografts derived from stem cell-like glioma cells in athymic mice, the researchers note, but tumors derived from ordinary tumor cells were not significantly inhibited by bevacizumab.

"Our studies suggest that the tumor subpopulation that shares characteristics with stem cells can contribute to tumor malignancy and may be a key target of antiangiogenic therapies," the authors conclude.

"We have suddenly realized that we have to view cancer a whole new way," Dr. Rich said. "It is very exciting to gain new insights, but like everything else in cancer biology, it will be complex and instant success in brain tumors is unlikely. Rather, if we can take these highly lethal cancers and slow them so they act like a chronic disease, we will have achieved a great deal."

"We are already looking for the molecular regulators of VEGF in the stem-like cells," Dr. Rich added. "We are also trying to link the fraction of (stem cell-like glioma cells) in tissue samples from patients treated with bevacizumab to the response of the patients to the drug."

Cancer Res 2006;66:7843-7848.

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