Histology of human glioblastoma transplanted on chicken chorioallantoic membrane

Neringa Balčiūnienė, Arimantas Tamašauskas¹, Angelija Valančiūtė², Vytenis Deltuva¹, Gintautas Vaitiekaitis³, Inga Gudinavičienė⁴, Joachim Weis⁵, Dietrich Graf von Keyserlingk¹

Department of Neurosurgery, ¹Institute for Biomedical Research, ²Department of Histology and Embryology, ³Department of Physics, Mathematics, and Biophysics, ⁴Department of Pathological Anatomy, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania, ⁵Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University Clinics, Germany

Key words: glioblastoma; chicken embryo; chorioallantoic membrane; immunohistochemistry; inflammatory cells.

Summary. Glioblastoma is the most malignant tumor in the range of cerebral astrocytic gliomas. A lot of experimental models are used to evaluate various properties of glioblastoma. Chicken chorioallantoic membrane model is one of them.

Objective. To evaluate histology and survival of glioblastoma tumors taken immediately from operating theatre and transplanted on chicken chorioallantoic membrane.

Materials and methods. Glioblastoma samples obtained from 10 patients were transplanted onto 200 eggs. Overall, we used 15 tumors; only 5 of them were not glioblastomas as it was revealed later.

Results. The transplanted tumors survive up to 6 days. Transplants do not survive longer because during embryo’s development the nourishing membrane dries. Transplanted glioblastomas exhibited the same features as original glioblastomas – necrosis, endothelium proliferation, cellular polymorphism – while transplanted glioblastomas also showed glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), vimentin, Ki67, S100 protein, neurofilament immunoreactivity, and infiltration of macrophages (CD68) and T cells (CD3⁺, CD8⁺). Transplanted glioblastomas did not show any immunoreactivity of p53. Invasion of vessels from the chicken into transplanted tumor is not observed. Chicken erythrocytes did not appear within the transplants, and tumor cells invade chicken tissue at the minimum.

Conclusion. Our data show that transplanted pieces of glioblastoma survive with all cytological features. The presence of macrophages (marker CD68) and T cells (markers CD3⁺ and CD8⁺) can be registered in the transplant. The data revealed that transplanted glioblastoma remains as insulated unit, which survives from nourishment of the chorioallantoic membrane apparently only by diffusion. The features of original tumor-host reaction of the patient remained too.

Correspondence to N. Balčiūnienė, Department of Neurosurgery, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: xnerisx@gmail.com

Received 8 April 2008, accepted 5 February 2009