NatWi - Tavernarakis

Session topic: Model Systems in Neurosciences

Nektarios Tavernarakis
Nuclear autophagy delays ageing and preserves germline immortality under stress

POSTPONED:
Vidhya M. Ravi
A Novel Glioblastoma Model using Brain Slice Cultures:

Glioblastomas (GBM) are highly malignant and aggressive brain tumors marked by complex interactions within the tumor environment. The establishment of an accurate tumor model, which sufficiently mirrors the physiological conditions of the central nervous system (CNS) has been a major challenge for years. In our study we present a straightforward and well-available model based on cultured human neocortical slices originating from therapeutic resection surgery. Due to essential improvements of the cultivation protocol, slices remained viable for 14 days without large changes of the electrophysiological or transcriptional properties. Further, we injected tumor cells into our slices and found a large agreement with tumor behavior described in de-novo GBM with respect to tumor growth pattern, therapy response and cytokine environment. We next showed that reactive transformation of astrocytes as an example of the cellular non-malignant tumor environment could be accurately simulated in our model and transcriptional differences remained similar to astrocytes isolated from acute GBM specimens. In a nutshell, human neocortical slice is a simple and accurate way to study GBM cells in their physiological CNS environment, from which valuable insights could be gained that have been hidden in tumor models of the past provided by other species.

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