Human glioma cell culture: two FCS-free media could be recommended for clinical use in immunotherapy

Abstract

Immunotherapy, particularly active vaccination, may be developed as an effective and safe treatment modality for malignant gliomas, which continue to have a poor prognosis, despite advances in surgical techniques and adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Since no glioma-specific tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) have been discovered, autologous tumor cells or well-established glioma cell lines could be used in future vaccination protocols to induce antitumour immunity against unknown TAAs. One obstacle for clinical use of these tumour cell vaccines is related to foetal calf serum (FCS). Efforts are currently being directed toward developing FCS-free media and serum-free alternatives to culture these cell vaccines. In this study, a medium containing human serum and one serum-free medium (UltraCulture), supplemented or not with epidermal growth factor, were tested on morphology, survival, DNA content and TAA expression of human glioma cell lines and glioma biopsy primary cultures. Their effects were compared on FCS-containing medium. Results show that, whatever the medium used, no significant variations in morphology and survival were observed. Furthermore, human serum-containing medium or UltraCulture preserved at early passage cultures the cell population of interest present in the biopsies before culture. In addition, the expression profile of eight TAAs was similar between these media. These data indicate that human serum-containing medium and UltraCulture serum-free medium could be promising candidates to produce tumour-cell vaccines.

Isolation of a new cell population in the glioblastoma microenvironment

“…As described in our previous study [19], culture of TZ specimens in HABS-containing medium preserved the tumor cell population of interest present in the initial biopsy during the two first passages as shown by the presence of aneuploid groups and interleukin-13 receptor subunit alpha-2 (IL-13Ra2) messenger RNA (mRNA) expression. In parallel, the culture induced a decrease of the proportion of diploid cells of which the normal cells belong to (Fig.…”

Autologous tumor cell vaccination plus infusion of GM-CSF by a programmable pump in the treatment of recurrent malignant gliomas

“…While many reports suggest that tissue culture conditions can change the phenotype of tumors, we previously showed that our culture conditions preserved, during early passages, the cell population of interest present in the original tumor and TAA expression. 26 However, it is clear that efforts should be made to obtain sufficient cell numbers in a relatively short period of time to avoid a large recurrence. To increase the cell yield, some clinical studies have used frozen tumor digests or formalin-fixed tumor tissue for vaccination without cultured cells.…”

Porcine neural progenitor cells derived from tissue at different gestational ages can be distinguished by global transcriptome

“…UltraCULTURE Medium Shows Little Added Benefit for Porcine BPCs In Vitro UL has been shown to provide benefits for certain cell lines in vitro, 32,35 but its efficacy on stem or progenitor cells has not been studied fully. Human mesenchymal stem cells were shown to exhibit some improved proliferation and survival in vitro when cultured with UL versus other serum-free media.…”