A Three-Dimensional Organoid Culture System to Model Invasive Patterns of Patient-Derived Glioma Stem Cells

Glioblastoma multiformes (GBMs) are recurring brain tumors containing self-renewing glioma stem cells (GSCs), which contribute to tumor initiation and therapy resistance. These tumors are heterogeneous in cellular composition and are highly invasive. In addition, their ability to invade surrounding tissue away from the tumor core makes this cancer difficult to treat. Until recently, the methods for culturing GSCs and studying their invasion patterns were not modeled in human-relevant culture systems. We describe a protocol that constitutes multiple assays to study GSC invasion into human brain-like tissue organoids derived from iPSCs. These methods can be easily adopted in an existing cell culture lab facility. This chapter aims to provide researchers with detailed step-by-step procedure for generating 3D brain organoids and different assay methods to study invasion patterns of patient-derived GSCs.