CHARACTERISTICS OF A172 AND T98G CELL LINES

During continuous cultivation cell lines can lose a number of innate characteristics or acquire new ones. In this work we compared growth and phenotypic characteristics of human glioblastoma À172 and Ò98G lines from cell culture collection of Research Institute of Influenza of Ministry of Health of Russian Federation (St. Petersburg). The activity of genes encoding intracellular proteins that determine cell lines belonging to mesenchymal type, as well as several growth factor genes and extracellular matrix genes were estimated. Cell lines A172 and T98G varied in morphology and surface markers expression. A172 cells were characterized by higher expression of mesenchymal markers CD90, CD105, fibroblast activation protein, and tenascin C. Both cell lines showed high level of a2 smooth muscle actin expression. The obtained data indicating high activity of genes encoding major inductors of angiogenesis (VEGF, FGF2 (b), TGFb1) and thrombospondin-1 in foregoing cell lines are in agreement with published data. Reduction of fetal serum in culture medium from 10 to 5 % in both cell lines resulted in the increase of proportion of cells with surface antigens CD73 and CD105. Both A172 and T98G cell lines sustain the main features of glioblastomas and therefore can serve as research objects in investigation of this kind of neoplasms.