The impact of electrical signal on brain tumor cell migration and the study of molecular mechanism

Abstract

Glioblastoma is the most common type of brain tumor, often causes poor prognosis, and high mortality rate. The malignancy of glioblastoma is mainly result in high invasiveness behavior of glioma cells. Although surgery is the major therapeutic method, complete resection is difficult since the tumor is usually infiltrative. The invasion of glioblastoma is a complex process where tumor cell interacts with microenvironment and changes extracellular matrix. Other factors such as matrix metalloproteinases, and plasminogen activator are upregulated in which and contributes to tumor aggressiveness. There are studies revealed that engineered tumor cell culture in three-dimensional (3D) matrices is more physiologically relevant than a two‐dimensional (2D) cell culture system. Interestingly, recent studies showed that direct current electric fields (dcEFs) affect neural stem cell migration through establishing a voltage gradient of ion channels, pumps, and leaks. This phenomenon is also observed in other type of cancer cells including breast, lung, brain, and prostate cancer, however, their role of dcEFs in regulation of cancer cell migration in a 3D matrices and molecular mechanism is poorly understood and metastasis is poorly understood. This study investigates the migration and invasion of human glioma cells that are cultured in 3D model of collagen type 1 matrix in response to stimulation of different dcEFs strength.human glioma cell, cultured in 3D model of collagen type 1 matrix, report migration and invasion response under stimulation of different dcEFs strength.