Locomotion and proliferation of glioblastoma cells in vitro:: statistical evaluation of videomicroscopic observations

Object. The motility and doubling of human glioblastoma cells were investigated by means of statistical evaluation of large sets of data obtained using computer-aided videomicroscopy. Methods. Data were obtained on cells in four established glioblastoma cell lines and also on primary tumor cells cultured from fresh surgical samples. Growth rates and cell cycle times were measured in individual microscopic fields. The averages of cell cycle time and the duplication time for the recorded cell populations were 26.2 +/- 5.6 hours and 38 +/- 4 hours, respectively. With these parameters, no significant differences among the cell lines were revealed. Also, there was no correlation in the cell cycle time of a parent cell and its progeny in any of the cultures. Statistical analysis of cell locomotion revealed an exponential distribution of cell velocities and strong fluctuations in individual cell velocities across rime. The average velocity values ranged from 4.2 to 27.9 mu m/hour. In spite of the uniform histopathological classification of the four tumors, each cell line produced by these tumors displayed distinct velocity distribution profiles and characteristic average velocity values. A comparison of recently established primary cultures with cell lines that had propagated multiple times indicated that cells derived from different tumors sustain their characteristic locomotor activity after several passages. Conclusions. It can be inferred from the data that statistical evaluation of physical parameters of cell locomotion can provide additional tools for tumor diagnosis.