Translocation of human glial and glioma cells in culture

Dissecting the individuality of cancer cells: the morphological and molecular dynamics of single human glioma cells

A glioma produces some of the most heterogeneously growing, angiogenic, and invasive primary brain tumor cells known. To dissect cellular individuality, and therefore tumor heterogeneity, multiple morphological and molecular processes in single living human glioma cells were measured using multimode light microscopy. Feature extraction of time-lapse image series of spreading, locomoting, and interacting cells either in the presence or absence of physiological modulators was performed by defining five parameters that described cell shape, movement, and cell-cell contacts. Concurrent visualization of all five parameters with a scatterplot matrix revealed temporal as well as time-independent relationships between the parameters that were sufficient to define the individuality of normal and transformed glial cells. Because the actin-cytoskeleton plays a role in regulating the cellular processes described above, the dynamics of a fluorescent analog of non-muscle actin within motile glioma cells were measured in addition to the morphological parameters. The actin-cytoskeleton within the thin sweeping lamellipodia of a glioma exhibited a paucity of large stress fibers, a rich collection of microvillar structures containing actin, and dynamics that were distinct from those of normal motile cells. This approach can therefore potentially be used to dissect the molecular origins of transformation using a small number of representative tumor cells.

Growth of cultured human glioma tumour cells can be regulated with histamine and histamine antagonists

The 50% survival time for low grade astrocytomas is 50 months and for high grade astrocytomas it is 13 months, underlining the need for new therapies. Several reports show that in vivo histamine antagonists cause retardation of tumour growth in some animal models and prolonged survival in cancer patients. Therefore we have tested the growth modulating effects of histamine and histamine antagonists on human glioma cultures. Twelve freshly excised human gliomas were cultured and tested for their in vitro sensitivity to histamine and histamine antagonists. Four continuous glioma cell lines were used to confirm the glioma-specificity of the effects observed in the primary cell lines. In low serum concentration (0 or 1%) the growth of 5/9 primary glioma-derived cultures could be stimulated with 0.2 mM histamine, and in 4/5 cases with 0.2 microM histamine. One mM of the histamine H2-receptor antagonist cimetidine could inhibit the growth of 4/5 primary glioma cultures when tested in 1% human AB serum, and of 6/13 cases when tested in 1% FCS. Lower concentrations (down to 1 microM) were less effective. The histamine H1-receptor antagonist pyrilamine gave variable results. The specificity of the effects is indicated by the absence of a generalised toxic effect, by the observation that the antagonist-induced inhibition could be reversed with histamine, and by the correlation of the obtained cimetidine-induced growth inhibition with the maximal growth rate of the primary cell lines in 10% FCS. The observed cimetidine-induced inhibition of the in vitro proliferation of gliomas suggests that cimetidine is a relevant candidate for the in vivo growth inhibition of these tumours.