Vladimir Mlynarik1, Cristina Cudalbu1, Virginie Clment2, Denis Marino2, Ivan Radovanovic2, Rolf Gruetter1,3
1Laboratory of Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; 2Dept. of Genetic Medicine and Development, University of Geneva School of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland; 3Departments of Radiology, Universities of Lausanne and Geneva
Injecting separated fresh or cultured human glioma-initiating cells into brain of nude mice produced tumors having two different phenotypes. The tumors from cultured cells grew fast and showed necrosis and Gd enhancement, while the gliomas from fresh cells grew slowly and showed no necrosis and very little Gd enhancement. Proton localized spectroscopy at 14.1 Tesla revealed different metabolic profiles in the two types of tumors. Characteristic changes of metabolite concentrations were observed in the brain tissue near the injection site of the cultured glioma-initiating cells before solid tumors were detected by MRI.