Purpose: A better understanding of the vitamin D 3 metabolism is required to evaluate its potential therapeutic value for cancers. Here, we set out to contribute to the understanding of vitamin D 3 metabolism in glioblastoma multiforme. Experimental Design: We did nested touchdown reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) to identify CYP27B1 splice variants and real-time RT-PCR to quantify the expression of CYP27B1. A cell line was treated with calcitriol to determine the effect on the expression of CYP27B1, 1a,25-dihydroxyvitamin D 3 -24-hydroxylase (CYP24), and vitamin D 3 receptor (VDR). We generated three antibodies for the specific detection of CYP27B1 and splice variants. HighperformanceTLC was done to determine the endogenous CYP27B1activity and the functionality of CYP27B1splice variants. Using WST-1assay, we determined the effect of vitamin D 3 metabolites on proliferation. Results: We report a total of 16 splice variants of CYP27B1 in glioblastoma multiforme and a different expression of CYP27B1 and variants between glioblastoma multiforme and normal tissues.We found preliminary evidence for enzymatic activity of endogenous CYP27B1in glioblastoma multiforme cell cultures but not for the functionality of the splice variants. By adding calcitriol, we found a proliferative effect for some cell lines depending on the dose of calcitriol. The administration of calcitriol led to an elevated expression of CYP27B1and CYP24 but left the expression of theVDR unaltered. Conclusions: Our findings show that glioblastoma multiforme cell lines metabolize calcidiol. In addition, we show various effects mediated by calcitriol. We found a special vitamin D 3 metabolism and mode of action in glioblastoma multiforme that has to be taken into account in future vitamin D 3^r elated therapies.The classic metabolism of the secosteroid hormone vitamin D 3 to its active form followed by several degradation pathways is well described. Vitamin Besides renal CYP27B1 activity, extrarenal CYP27B1 expression has been described in a variety of tissues (4). In vitro, several nonrenal cells, including microglial cells (5), produce calcitriol from its precursor. In addition, several cancer cells show CYP27B1 activity (e.g., human non -small cell lung carcinoma cells; ref. 6). Local production of calcitriol has been postulated to play an autocrine or paracrine role in vitamin Dmediated growth control (7).As shown for numerous normal and cancer cell lines, calcitriol is at high concentrations (10 À9 to 10 À6 mol/L) an antiproliferative and prodifferentiating agent that induces apoptosis and inhibits cell migration (8). The antiproliferative properties of calcitriol, as described above, were also shown for central nervous system tumors, including glioblastoma cell lines (9). Beneficial effects of the vitamin D 3 metabolite 1a-hydroxyvitamin D 3 have been reported for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme in a small phase II clinical study (10).