Relationship between gangliosides and doubling times in cultured human brain and brain tumor cells

Cells cultured in vitro from normal human white matter and 3 individual brain tumors exhibited the following population doubling times: cells from normal human white matter, 64 +/- 22 h, glioblastoma multiforme, 43 +/- 11 h; malignant astrocytoma, 98 +/- 19 h; and anaplastic oligodendroglioma, 81 +/- 24 h. Cells were seeded at subconfluent density, pulse-labelled for 24 h with the ganglioside precursor D-[1-14C]glucosamine and harvested. Radioactive patterns of extracted gangliosides showed that incorporation of label into disialoganglioside was significantly higher in the samples with longer population doubling times than in samples with shorter population doubling times. These findings suggest gangliosides may play a role in regulation of cell growth.