Characterization and Comparison of Cancer Stem Cells in Human and Canine Glioma Cell Lines

Gliomas are among the most common and malignantforms of primary brain tumors that occur naturally inhumans. They represent about 33% of brain tumorsand 80% of malignant brain tumors. Gliomas alsospontaneously arise in specific breeds in the canine family.Canine gliomas are histologically similar to human gliomaand have similar presentation and response to treatmentin the clinic. A comparison of canine and human gliomascould prove to be invaluable, because the acceptedrodent model has limitations when testing therapies andidentifying targets. Our goal is to obtain global proteinexpression and metabolic profiles of different classificationand grades of human and canine glioma, in order toidentify and compare the tumor survival strategies in bothsystems. Toward this end, we harvested and cultured cellsfrom a naturally occurring grade-3 oligodendrogliomatumor that was isolated from a canine patient at the PurdueUniversity Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Similar to cellsfrom human glioma, these cells formed neurosphereswhen cultured in serum free media in the presence of FGFand EGF. The cells were also sensitive to plating densityand oxygen concentrations.This work was supported by the National Institutes ofHealth, National Cancer Institute R25CA128770 CancerPrevention Internship Program administered by theOncological Sciences Center and the Discovery LearningResearch Center at Purdue University. This work wasalso supported by Showalter Research Foundation and aCollege of Technology Seed Grant.