Glioblastoma is a brain tumour whose aggressiveness can be attributed to tumour stem cells. Responsible for treatment resistance, these cells have the ability to form neurospheres and can engage in neural differentiation pathways under certain culture conditions. Stem cells from human glioblastoma, clustered in a neurosphere, are visible here by blue labelling of their nuclei. Under the action of growth factors, they adhere, migrate and differentiate into a crown around the initial sphere. The further the cells move away, the more they acquire a phenotype that resembles astrocytes, in green, or neurons, in red. These cell models are intended to optimise treatments and test new therapeutic approaches. This image was taken using confocal microscopy. It is a prizewinner in the “Molecular Biology – Health” category of the 2022 La preuve par l’image (LPPI) competition.

Image made by Caroline Delmas (équipe RADOPT) and Laetitia Ligat (Pole Technologique du CRCT)

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