Judging a cell by its cover: our CellShape-seq study is out in Neuro-Oncology

We’re delighted to share that our study on glioblastoma stem-like cells has been published in Neuro-Oncology.

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive primary brain tumour in adults. Much of its resistance to therapy comes from a diverse population of stem-like cells. Classifying these cells by their transcriptome alone doesn’t fully explain how they behave. So we asked whether their shape could tell us more.

To find out, we developed CellShape-seq, which links each cell’s morphology to its transcriptional profile. In patient-derived glioblastoma organoids, we found three morphological classes of stem-like cells: nonpolar, elongated and multipolar. Each has its own behaviour. Elongated cells invade along blood vessels, while multipolar cells form functional multicellular networks. Under drug treatment, these morphologies become plastic. Each class shows its own resistances and vulnerabilities. A combination of three drugs, each aimed at a different class, significantly reduced the viability of these cells.

For us, this study closes a circle. The question that has long driven our work on neural progenitors is how a cell’s shape relates to what it does. Here that question turns out to matter in disease as well.

The project was led by Carlotta Barelli and is a fitting final chapter to the PhD she defended last week. Congratulations, Dr Barelli! Warm thanks to all co-authors, to our clinical collaborators, and to the Human Technopole National Facilities for Light Imaging, Genomics, and Data Handling & Analysis, who made this work possible.

Read the paper: https://academic.oup.com/neuro-oncology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/neuonc/noag235/8837427

Read the HT highlight: https://humantechnopole.it/en/news/cellshape-seq-decoding-glioblastoma-through-cell-morphology/