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Updated: Dec 11, 2025

Co-culture of Glioblastoma Stem-like Cells on Patterned Neurons to Study Migration and Cellular Interactions
Published on: February 24, 2021
Anarchy or Respect the Hierarchy? The Complexity of Glioblastoma
Robert F Koncar1,2, Sameer Agnihotri3,2
1Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Abstract:
Glioma stem-like cells (GSC) in glioblastoma (GBM) structure tumor cells into a hierarchical organization and are postulated to be recalcitrant to conventional treatments, resulting in fatal relapse of the disease. A better understanding of these cells would be essential for meaningful and lasting treatments. In this issue of Cancer Research, Virolle and colleagues report a fascinating phenotype whereby the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway regulates a mechanism of dedifferentiation of GBM cells into a stem-like state expressing markers of pluripotency through an EGFR-ERK-EGR1-dependent axis. This aptly termed "toggle switch" may contribute to maintenance of GSCs, promote intratumor heterogeneity, and potentially provide innovative treatment options.See related article by Almairac et al., p. 3236.
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