Establishment and Characterization of a Human Glioblastoma Cell Line Which Expresses Somatostatin and its Functional Receptor

A new human glioblastoma cell line, called GBS-1, was established from a brain tumor of a 53-year-old Japanese female. The cultured tumor cells could be divided into two groups based upon their morphology and immunoreactivity against A2B5 antibody. The modal chromosome number at passage 71 was 78-79 and all cells examined had 17p. Doubling time was 36 hours. Tumor formation was not observed in the back of SCID mice 3 months after subcutaneous inoculation of the tumor cells. Somatostatin was detected in the supernatant of the cultured cells by radioimmunoassay. Expression of somatostatin mRNA was also detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) . Binding assay with 125I-somatostatin demonstrated the presence of somatostatin binding sites in the tumor cells.