2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Involvement of cancer stem cells in the failure of curative treatment

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21791366
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Cerebral neurosurgery
Research Institution	Ehime University
Principal Investigator	TAKAHASHI Hisaaki Ehime University, 大学院・医学系研究科, 講師 (20363228)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2010
Keywords	グリオブラストーマ / 腫瘍幹細胞 / 浸潤 / マトリックスメタロプロテアーゼ
Research Abstract	Glioblastoma has been shown to contain a small population of cancer stem cells. Recent studies have suggested that cancer stem cells cause tumor recurrence based on their resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Although the highly invasive nature of glioblastoma cells is also implicated in the failure of current therapies, little is known whether cancer stem cells are involved in invasiveness. In this study, we isolated cancer stem-like from a human glioblastoma cell line, U251, and assessed their migratory and invasive ability. These cells showed the enhanced migratory and invasive ability on both in vitro and in vivo. The highly invasive potential of cancer stem cells depends on MMP-13 enzymatic activity, thus MMP-13 might be a potential therapeutic target for glioblastomas.