Phenotyping clonal populations of glioma stem cell reveals a high degree of plasticity in response to changes of microenvironment

The phenotype of glioma-initiating cells (GIC) is modulated by cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic factors. Phenotypic heterogeneity and plasticity of GIC is an important limitation to therapeutic approaches targeting cancer stem cells. Plasticity also presents a challenge to the identification, isolation, and propagation of purified cancer stem cells. Here we use a barcode labelling approach of GIC to generate clonal populations over a number of passages, in combination with phenotyping using the established stem cell markers CD133, CD15, CD44, and A2B5. Using two cell lines derived from isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)-wildtype glioblastoma, we identify a remarkable heterogeneity of the phenotypes between the cell lines. During passaging, clonal expansion manifests as the emergence of a limited number of barcoded clones and a decrease in the overall number of clones. Dual-labelled GIC are capable of forming traceable clonal populations which emerge after as few as two passages from mixed cultures and through analyses of similarity of relative proportions of 16 surface markers we were able to pinpoint the fate of such populations. By generating tumour organoids we observed a remarkable persistence of dominant clones but also a significant plasticity of stemness marker expression. Our study presents an experimental approach to simultaneously barcode and phenotype glioma-initiating cells to assess their functional properties, for example to screen newly established GIC for tumour-specific therapeutic vulnerabilities.