Mechanism of generation of pituitary adenomas based on theidentification of pituitary tumor stem cells

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To investigate the presence of tumor stem cells in the pituitary adenoma, and to clarifythe relationship of tumor diversity and tumor development, we cultured pituitary tumorstem cells from surgical resected specimen. Stable sphere formation was obtained in twocases of non-functioning pituitary adenoma, one case of GH-secreting pituitary adenoma,and one case of ACTH-secreting pituitary adenoma. In the condition of differentiationmedia, sphere cells obtained from GH-secreting pituitary adenoma or ACTH-secretingpituitary adenoma were positively immunostained with anti-GH antibody or anti-ACTHantibody, respectively. When inducing differentiation of pituitary adenoma stem cellsextracted from the non functional pituitary adenoma was performed, positive PRL and GHimmunostaining became to be observed. Furthermore, the presence of Nestin-positive cellswas observed in tumor tissue. From these results, the pituitary tumor stem cells may existin the tumor tissue and have the ability to differentiate into multiple directions