Tumor sphere, a survival predictor for glioma

The glioma stem-like cells (GSLCs) played important roles in glioma genesis. Tumor spheres, a robust index reflecting the behavior of GSLCs, was often used to isolate the ones. We planted tumor spheres or adherent tumor cells from glioma cell lines into the rats, respectively. We assessed the survival time of the grafted rats and subcutaneous tumor sizes in grafted rats. Results showed that the rats seeded intracranially with tumor spheres had shorter survival time, and the rats grafted subcutaneously enjoyed larger tumor sizes as compared with those seeded with the adherent tumor cells. This study implied that the ability of tumor sphere formation could be considered as a predictive factor to evaluate the survival situation of glioma animal.