Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 2, 2026
Patient Derived Cell Culture and Isolation of CD133+ Putative Cancer Stem Cells from Melanoma
Published on: March 13, 2013
Presence of pluripotent CD133+ cells correlates with malignancy of gliomas
Niklas Thon1, Karin Damianoff, Jemima Hegermann
1Department of Neurosurgery, Hospital of the University of Munich, Marchioninistr. 15, 81377 Munich, Germany. niklas.thon@med.uni-muenchen.de
Background:
Presence of CD133(+) cancer stem cells has been demonstrated within glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most malignant phenotype of gliomas (WHO grade IV). Since GBM frequently develops from low grade gliomas (WHO grade II) we assessed a possible qualitative or quantitative correlation of CD133(+) cells and glioma grade to get new insights in gliomagenesis.
Results:
The amount of CD133(+) cells within the bulk tumor mass, analyzed by immunostaining and Western blotting, showed a clear quantitative correlation with glioma grade (WHO degrees II, III and IV). Most of CD133(+) cells were arranged in clusters frequently associated to tumor vessels. Protein analysis revealed high cellular coexpression of CD133 with Musashi-I but not CD34 indicating a neural, i.e. local origin of these cells. In vitro, no differences in stem cell properties concerning self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation have been found for CD133(+) cells isolated from gliomas of different grades.
Conclusions:
These findings indicate a solely quantitative correlation of glioma grade with the presence of neural CD133(+) cells within tumors supporting the concept of a CD133(+) stem cell dependent gliomagenesis.
