We found that the purified CD133+ GBM cells sorted from the CD133+ GBM spheres express SOX2 and CD44 and are capable of clonal self-renewal and dividing to produce fast-growing CD133- progeny, which form the major cell population within GBM spheres.
Interesting findings include that SOX2 regulates the expression of SOX family proteins SOX1 and SOX18, and that SOX2 down regulates BEX1 (brain expressed X-linked 1) and BEX2 (brain expressed X-linked 2), two genes with tumor suppressor activity in GBM.
SOX2 is a key gene implicated in maintaining the stemness of embryonic and adult stem cells that appears to re-activate in several human cancers including glioblastoma multiforme.
Transcription factor Sox2, a key gene implicated in maintaining the "stemness" of embryonic and adult stem cells, plays an important role in the carcinogenesis and maintenance of glioblastoma.
The present study thus describes a tumor- and neurosphere-forming SOX2-dependent subset of glioblastoma cultures characterized by a gene expression signature similar to that of the recently described classical, proneural, and/or neural subsets of glioblastoma.
We observed Sox2 overexpression (86%; N = 414), Sox2 gene amplification (8.5%; N = 492), and Sox 2 promoter hypomethylation (100%; N = 258), suggesting the relevance of this factor in the malignant phenotype of GBMs.
MerTK expression is maintained in primary GBM-derived tumour spheres under stem cell culture conditions but diminishes significantly in serum-containing cultures with concomitant downregulation of Nestin and Sox2.
We provide evidence that sorafenib has a selective action on glioblastoma stem cells, causing enrichment of cultures in differentiated cells, downregulation of the expression of stemness markers required to maintain malignancy (nestin, Olig2 and Sox2) and reducing cell clonogenic ability in vitro and tumorigenic potential in vivo.
Because both ID4 alone and a complex of SOX4 and OCT-4 activate SOX2 transcription, it is possible that multiple activation of SOX2 impair the prognosis of GBM patients.
Double immunostaining for FABP7 and Sox2 showed that FABP7(+) Sox2(+) tumor cells were significantly increased in glioblastoma (grade IV) compared with diffuse astrocytoma (grade II) and anaplastic astrocytoma (grade III).
Our results indicate that Sox2 regulates the expression of key genes and pathways involved in GBM malignancy, in both cancer stemlike and differentiated cells, and maintains plasticity for bidirectional conversion between the two states, with significant clinical implications.
Pharmacological blockade with SR48692 or lentivirus mediated knockdown of NTSR1 efficiently reduced the sphere-forming ability and expression of stem cell markers such as nestin and Sox2 in GSCs isolated from glioblastoma cell line and glioblastoma tissues.
Ectopic expression of G9a also increased Sox2 protein levels in another ER(+) breast cancer cell line, ZR-75-1, whereas it did not affect Sox2 expression in MDA-MB-231 cells, an ER(-) breast cancer cell line, or in glioblastoma cell lines.
CD9 silencing in three CD133+ glioblastoma cell lines (NCH644, NCH421k and NCH660h) led to decreased cell proliferation, survival, invasion, and self-renewal ability, and altered expression of the stem-cell markers CD133, nestin and SOX2.
These results show for the first time that miR-296-5p inhibits transcriptional mechanisms that support GBM SCs and identify a miR-296-5p:HMGA1:Sox2 axis as a novel regulator of GBM SCs and candidate pathway for targeting therapies directed at depleting tumors of their tumor-propagating stem cell subsets.
Our results not only revealed the genetic plasticity contributing to drug resistance and stemness but also demonstrated the dominant role of SOX2 in maintenance of GBM CSCs, which may provide a novel therapeutic target to overcome the conundrum of poor survival of brain cancers.