Owing to lack of appropriate model systems, investigations of meningioma biology have come to a stop. In this study, we developed a comprehensive digestion method and defined a culture system. Using this method and system, primary meningioma cells in conditioned suspension medium and a hypoxic environment could be amplified in spheres and were passaged for more than ten generations. Meningioma sphere cells were positive for meningioma cell markers and negative for markers of neural cell types. Importantly, we found the cells expressed the stem cell marker, CD133, but not nestin. All of the tumor sphere cell populations showed a slower degree of cell proliferation than that of human glioma cells and fetal neural stem cells (NSCs). Further studies showed that the proliferative rate was positively correlated with CD133 expression. The higher the CD133 expression, the faster the cell proliferation. With the increase in cell generations, the cell proliferation rate gradually slowed down, and CD133 expression also decreased. Single CD133(+) cells rather than CD133(-) cells could form spheres. Thus, the results above indicated that those cells expressing CD133 in spheres might be stem-like cells, which may be responsible for efficient amplification of human meningioma cells. Decreased expression of CD133 may lead to the failure of long-term passaging.
Keywords: CD133; meningioma cells; proliferation; sphere.