Authors: Weiliang Chen Donghai Wang Xinwen Du Ying He Songyu Chen Qianqian Shao Chao Ma Bin Huang Anjing Chen Peng Zhao Xun Qu Xingang Li
Publish Date: 2015/01/29
Volume: 32, Issue: 3, Pages: 43-
Abstract
Resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs remains a great obstacle to successful treatment of gliomas Understanding the mechanism of glioma chemoresistance is conducive to develop effective strategies to overcome resistance Astrocytes are the major stromal cells in the brain and have been demonstrated to play a key role in the malignant phenotype of gliomas However little is known regarding its role in glioma chemoresistance In our study we established a coculture system of human astrocytes and glioma in vitro to simulate tumor microenvironment Our results showed that astrocytes significantly reduced glioma cell apoptosis induced by the chemotherapeutic drugs temozolomide and vincristine This protective effect was dependent on direct contact between astrocytes and glioma cells through Cx43GJC Moreover in human glioma specimens we found astrocytes infiltrating around the tumor with a reactive appearance suggesting that these astrocytes would play the same chemoprotective effect on gliomas in vivo Our results expand the understanding of the interaction between astrocytes and glioma cells and provide a possible explanation for unsatisfactory clinical outcomes of chemotherapeutic drugs Cx43GJC between astrocytes and glioma cells may be a potential target for overcoming chemoresistance in gliomas clinicallyThis project is supported by Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China 81172404 81372720 the Shandong Provincial Outstanding Medical Academic Professional Program and the Special Foundation for Taishan Scholars ts20110814 The authors are grateful to Dr Lei Zhao and Jintang Sun for FACS analysis and Zhong Yao Ming Liu and Yang Xu for human glioma specimen collection
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