摘要：The brain tumor perivascular niche(PVN),the region in the vicinity of microvessels is a prime location for brain tumor stem-like cells(BTSCs)[1].Tumor microvasculature creates a complex microenvironment consisting of various cell types,the extracellular matrix,and soluble factors that mediate cell-cell interaction.The brain tumor PVN controls maintenance,expansion,and differentiation of BTSCs via direct cell contact or paracrine signaling cues.BTSCs often receive bidirectional crosstalk from endothelial cells and other cell types in the niche[2].In addition,the perivascular zone may serve as a path for tumor cells to migrate over long distances(3,4)Unlike other solid tumors,glioblastoma multiforme(GBM)cells rarely metastasize to other organs,but they can invade the entire brain by migrating along specific brain tissue structures,such as blood vessels or white matter tracts,leading to high rates of relapse.Despite the success in modeling diffuse brain tumors in both genetically-modified and patient-derived xenograft(PDX)animals,there is an unmet need for an in vitro system that can bridge conventional cell culture and animal models by mimicking not only the anatomy but also the function of the PVN to study the dynamics of BTSCs.In this presentation,I will describe the use of a microvasculature-on-a-chip system as a PVN model to evaluate the dynamics of BTSCs ex vivo from 10 glioblastoma patients [5].We observed that BTSCs preferentially localize in the perivascular zone.Live cell tracking showed that the cells residing in the vicinity of microvessels had the lowest motility,while a fraction of cells on the microvessels unexpectedly possessed the highest motility and migrated over the longest distance.These results indicate that the perivascular zone is a niche for BTSCs,while the microvascular tracks are also a path for long-distance tumor cell migration and invasion.Additionally,the degree of co-localization between tumor cells and microvessels varied significantly across patients.To validate the results from our
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