Vasculogenic mimicry-potential target for glioblastoma therapy: an in vitro and in vivo study

Glioblastoma is one of the most angiogenic human tumors and characterized by microvascular proliferations.A better understanding of glioblastoma vasculature is needed to optimize anti-angiogenic therapy that has shown a promising but incomplete efficacy.The present study examined 48 glioblastomas by CD34 endothelial marker periodic acid-Schiff(PAS)dual staining and found non-endothelial cell-lined

Glioblastoma is one of the most angiogenic human tumors and characterized by microvascular proliferations. A better understanding of glioblastoma vasculature is needed to optimize anti-angiogenic therapy that has shown a promising but incomplete efficacy. The present study examined 48 glioblastomas by CD34 endothelial marker periodic acid-Schiff （PAS） dual staining and found non-endothelial cell-lined blood vessels that were formed by tumor cells （vasculogenic mimicry, VM） existing in a fraction of these tumors. We hypothesized that CD133-positive glioblastoma stem-like ceils （GSCs） may play a pivotal role in gliohlastoma VM formation and then demonstrated in vitro and in vivo that a subset of GSCs were capable of vasculogenesis. Moreover, we found that several growth factors involved in normal angiogenesis were expressed in GSCs. We describe here a new mechanism of alternative glioblastoma vascularization and open a new perspective for the anti-vascular treatment strategy.