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Single cell-derived clonal analysis of human glioblastoma links functional and genomic heterogeneity Mona Meyer a,1 , Jüri Reimand b,c,1 , Xiaoyang Lan a,b , Renee Head a , Xueming Zhu a , Michelle Kushida a , Jane Bayani d , Jessica C. Pressey e , Anath C. Lionel b,f , Ian D. Clarke a,g , Michael Cusimano h , Jeremy A. Squire i , Stephen W. Scherer b,f , Mark Bernstein j , Melanie A. Woodin e , Gary D. Bader b,c,2 , and Peter B. Dirks a,b,k,2 a Division of Neurosurgery, Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X8; b Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A8; c The Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3E1 Canada; d Department of Transformative Pathology at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 0A3; e Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G5; f The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1L7; g Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 1W1; h Division of Neurosurgery, St. Michaels Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1W8; i Department of Pathology, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6; j Division of Neurosurgery, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 2S8; and k Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A8 Edited by Robert A. Weinberg, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ludwig MIT Center for Molecular Oncology, Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, and approved November 24, 2014 (received for review November 7, 2013) Glioblastoma (GBM) is a cancer comprised of morphologically, genetically, and phenotypically diverse cells. However, an un- derstanding of the functional significance of intratumoral hetero- geneity is lacking. We devised a method to isolate and functionally profile tumorigenic clones from patient glioblastoma samples. Individual clones demonstrated unique proliferation and differen- tiation abilities. Importantly, naïve patient tumors included clones that were temozolomide resistant, indicating that resistance to conventional GBM therapy can preexist in untreated tumors at a clonal level. Further, candidate therapies for resistant clones were detected with clone-specific drug screening. Genomic analyses revealed genes and pathways that associate with specific functional behavior of single clones. Our results suggest that functional clonal profiling used to identify tumorigenic and drug-resistant tumor clones will lead to the discovery of new GBM clone-specific treat- ment strategies. cancer | glioblastoma | clonal heterogeneity | genomic analysis | functional analysis G lioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and most aggres- sive primary malignant brain tumor in adults. Despite major efforts to improve GBM survival, radiation therapy with concurrent temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy achieves only a median sur- vival of 15 months with few long-term survivors. Many patients fail to respond to TMZ, and treatment of all patients at disease pro- gression uniformly fails. Glioblastoma is one of the first cancer types systematically studied at a genomic and transcriptomic level (13). Tran- scriptional profiling of GBM samples has revealed a landscape of intertumoral heterogeneity with distinct molecular tumor subtypes, although only slight prognostic differences are ap- parent in patients except for a clearly better prognosis in the CIMP+/IDH1 mutant subgroup (1, 46). Increasing evidence suggests that cancer tissues are more complex than previously thought, as tumors comprise considerable intratumoral het- erogeneity with mixtures of genetically distinct subclones that likely escape therapy and cause disease progression (4, 710). In particular, GBM is a cancer type comprised of morpholog- ically and phenotypically diverse cells (11). Recent studies have also uncovered genetic diversity apparent in subsamples of in- dividual patient GBMs (1215), and more recently in single GBM cells (9). Disease recurrence is associated with muta- tional events that are not shared with the primary tumor sug- gesting evolution from minority populations present at time of initial diagnosis (10). Understanding the links between genetic and functional behavior of individual GBM clones, derived from single pa- tient samples, will be essential to decipher patient-specific molecular mechanisms of GBM progression and therapeutic resistance. The study of bulk tumors provides a mixture of different signals from a heterogeneous set of clones and cur- rent single cell approaches are amenable to genomics but not functional studies. Here, we provide a detailed analysis of single cell derived clones from patient GBM samples using a method that directly links clonal molecular changes with functional properties. Parallel phenotypic and genomic analysis of these clones reveals a diverse landscape of functional and genetic heterogeneity, as well as insights into drug sensitivity pathways in glioblastoma. Significance Glioblastoma is an incurable brain tumor. It is characterized by intratumoral phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, but the functional significance of this heterogeneity is unclear. We devised an integrated functional and genomic strategy to ob- tain single cell-derived tumor clones directly from patient tumors to identify mechanisms of aggressive clone behavior and drug resistance. Genomic analysis of single clones iden- tified genes associated with clonal phenotypes. We predict that integration of functional and genomic analysis at a clonal level will be essential for understanding evolution and ther- apeutic resistance of human cancer, and will lead to the dis- covery of novel driver mechanisms and clone-specific cancer treatment. Author contributions: M.M., J.R., X.L., I.D.C., J.A.S., M.A.W., G.D.B., and P.B.D. designed research; M.M., J.R., X.L., R.H., X.Z., M.K., J.B., J.C.P., I.D.C., M.A.W., and G.D.B. performed research; M.M., J.R., X.L., M.C., M.B., and G.D.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; M.M., J.R., X.L., M.K., J.B., J.C.P., A.C.L., I.D.C., J.A.S., S.W.S., M.A.W., G.D.B., and P.B.D. analyzed data; M.M., J.R., X.L., G.D.B., and P.B.D. wrote the paper; and P.B.D. originated and supervised the study at all stages. The authors declare no conflict of interest. This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. Freely available online through the PNAS open access option. Data deposition: Gene expression profiles and copy number data are available at ArrayEx- press, www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/ (accession nos. E-MTAB-2693 and E-MTAB-2694). 1 M.M. and J.R. contributed equally to this work. 2 To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected] or peter. [email protected]. This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. 1073/pnas.1320611111/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1320611111 PNAS | January 20, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 3 | 851856 MEDICAL SCIENCES Downloaded by guest on April 8, 2020

Single cell-derived clonal analysis of human …Single cell-derived clonal analysis of human glioblastoma links functional and genomic heterogeneity Mona Meyera,1, Jüri Reimandb,c,1,

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Page 1: Single cell-derived clonal analysis of human …Single cell-derived clonal analysis of human glioblastoma links functional and genomic heterogeneity Mona Meyera,1, Jüri Reimandb,c,1,

Single cell-derived clonal analysis of humanglioblastoma links functional andgenomic heterogeneityMona Meyera,1, Jüri Reimandb,c,1, Xiaoyang Lana,b, Renee Heada, Xueming Zhua, Michelle Kushidaa, Jane Bayanid,Jessica C. Presseye, Anath C. Lionelb,f, Ian D. Clarkea,g, Michael Cusimanoh, Jeremy A. Squirei, Stephen W. Schererb,f,Mark Bernsteinj, Melanie A. Woodine, Gary D. Baderb,c,2, and Peter B. Dirksa,b,k,2

aDivision of Neurosurgery, Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre, Hospital for SickChildren, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X8; bDepartment of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A8; cThe Donnelly Centre,University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3E1 Canada; dDepartment of Transformative Pathology at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research,Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 0A3; eDepartment of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CanadaM5S 3G5; fThe Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1L7; gOntario College of Art and Design, Toronto,ON, Canada M5T 1W1; hDivision of Neurosurgery, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1W8; iDepartment of Pathology, Queen’s University,Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6; jDivision of Neurosurgery, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 2S8; and kDepartment of LaboratoryMedicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A8

Edited by Robert A. Weinberg, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ludwig MITCenter for Molecular Oncology, Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, and approved November 24, 2014 (received for review November 7, 2013)

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a cancer comprised of morphologically,genetically, and phenotypically diverse cells. However, an un-derstanding of the functional significance of intratumoral hetero-geneity is lacking. We devised a method to isolate and functionallyprofile tumorigenic clones from patient glioblastoma samples.Individual clones demonstrated unique proliferation and differen-tiation abilities. Importantly, naïve patient tumors included clonesthat were temozolomide resistant, indicating that resistance toconventional GBM therapy can preexist in untreated tumors ata clonal level. Further, candidate therapies for resistant clones weredetected with clone-specific drug screening. Genomic analysesrevealed genes and pathways that associate with specific functionalbehavior of single clones. Our results suggest that functional clonalprofiling used to identify tumorigenic and drug-resistant tumorclones will lead to the discovery of new GBM clone-specific treat-ment strategies.

cancer | glioblastoma | clonal heterogeneity | genomic analysis |functional analysis

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and most aggres-sive primary malignant brain tumor in adults. Despite major

efforts to improve GBM survival, radiation therapy with concurrenttemozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy achieves only a median sur-vival of 15 months with few long-term survivors. Many patients failto respond to TMZ, and treatment of all patients at disease pro-gression uniformly fails.Glioblastoma is one of the first cancer types systematically

studied at a genomic and transcriptomic level (1–3). Tran-scriptional profiling of GBM samples has revealed a landscapeof intertumoral heterogeneity with distinct molecular tumorsubtypes, although only slight prognostic differences are ap-parent in patients except for a clearly better prognosis in theCIMP+/IDH1 mutant subgroup (1, 4–6). Increasing evidencesuggests that cancer tissues are more complex than previouslythought, as tumors comprise considerable intratumoral het-erogeneity with mixtures of genetically distinct subclones thatlikely escape therapy and cause disease progression (4, 7–10).In particular, GBM is a cancer type comprised of morpholog-ically and phenotypically diverse cells (11). Recent studies havealso uncovered genetic diversity apparent in subsamples of in-dividual patient GBMs (12–15), and more recently in singleGBM cells (9). Disease recurrence is associated with muta-tional events that are not shared with the primary tumor sug-gesting evolution from minority populations present at time ofinitial diagnosis (10).

Understanding the links between genetic and functionalbehavior of individual GBM clones, derived from single pa-tient samples, will be essential to decipher patient-specificmolecular mechanisms of GBM progression and therapeuticresistance. The study of bulk tumors provides a mixture ofdifferent signals from a heterogeneous set of clones and cur-rent single cell approaches are amenable to genomics but notfunctional studies. Here, we provide a detailed analysis of singlecell derived clones from patient GBM samples using a methodthat directly links clonal molecular changes with functionalproperties. Parallel phenotypic and genomic analysis of theseclones reveals a diverse landscape of functional and geneticheterogeneity, as well as insights into drug sensitivity pathwaysin glioblastoma.

Significance

Glioblastoma is an incurable brain tumor. It is characterized byintratumoral phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, but thefunctional significance of this heterogeneity is unclear. Wedevised an integrated functional and genomic strategy to ob-tain single cell-derived tumor clones directly from patienttumors to identify mechanisms of aggressive clone behaviorand drug resistance. Genomic analysis of single clones iden-tified genes associated with clonal phenotypes. We predictthat integration of functional and genomic analysis at a clonallevel will be essential for understanding evolution and ther-apeutic resistance of human cancer, and will lead to the dis-covery of novel driver mechanisms and clone-specific cancertreatment.

Author contributions: M.M., J.R., X.L., I.D.C., J.A.S., M.A.W., G.D.B., and P.B.D. designedresearch; M.M., J.R., X.L., R.H., X.Z., M.K., J.B., J.C.P., I.D.C., M.A.W., and G.D.B. performedresearch; M.M., J.R., X.L., M.C., M.B., and G.D.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools;M.M., J.R., X.L., M.K., J.B., J.C.P., A.C.L., I.D.C., J.A.S., S.W.S., M.A.W., G.D.B., and P.B.D.analyzed data; M.M., J.R., X.L., G.D.B., and P.B.D. wrote the paper; and P.B.D. originatedand supervised the study at all stages.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

Data deposition: Gene expression profiles and copy number data are available at ArrayEx-press, www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/ (accession nos. E-MTAB-2693 and E-MTAB-2694).1M.M. and J.R. contributed equally to this work.2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected] or [email protected].

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1320611111/-/DCSupplemental.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1320611111 PNAS | January 20, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 3 | 851–856

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ResultsSingle Cell-Derived Clones of Human Glioblastoma Exhibit FunctionalHeterogeneity. To enable functional characterization of hetero-geneous clones in glioblastoma, we devised a method to isolateand grow individual clones from patient tumors using flowcytometry sorting (FACS) and single cell plating in stem cellculture conditions (Fig. 1A). We generated 44 individual singlecell derived clones from four patient tumors. All tested clonesestablished typical GBM tumors after orthotopic injection inmice, indicating their tumorigenic potential (SI Appendix, TableS1 and Fig. S1 A–D and Fig. 1B).We next functionally characterized individual clones. We

identified heterogeneous expression of key GBM proteins phos-phatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), epidermal growth factorreceptor (EGFR), and the constitutively active EGFR deletionmutant, EGFRvIII (2, 3, 10, 16), in three tumors, indicating thatdistinct known molecular GBM drivers vary at a clonal level (Fig.2A and SI Appendix, Fig. S2) and suggesting limitations to targetedtherapies based solely on bulk GBM analysis. In identical cul-ture conditions and with each result consistent in at least two

independent experiments with clones of different passages, theclones exhibited wide and independent variation in proliferationand differentiation abilities (Fig. 2B and SI Appendix, Figs. S3 andS4 A–C), demonstrating intrinsic distinct functional properties.We then assessed clonal population response to the conven-

tional GBM chemotherapeutic agent TMZ (17), in at least threeindependent experiments with clones of different passages. Twotumors contained clones with heterogeneous TMZ responses: 2of 8 tested populations in the naïve tumor GBM-472 showedsignificantly increased resistance to TMZ (P = 0.0011, t test withWelch correction; clones 472_8, 472_18), whereas 1 clone of 10 inthe recurrent tumor GBM-482 was relatively sensitive (P < 10−4;482_9; Fig. 2C). We observed only TMZ-resistant clones fromthe two additional naïve and recurrent tumors. TMZ responseand proliferation ability was not significantly correlated (SI Ap-pendix, Figs. S5 and S6). Clonal analysis of O6-methylguanin-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), a common biomarker of TMZresistance in GBM (18), showed variable promoter methylationand protein expression levels that were inconsistent with TMZresponse (Fig. 2 D and E and SI Appendix, Fig. S7). These datashow that TMZ-resistant clones are present ab initio and stably inuntreated patient tumors and are not necessarily acquired undertherapeutic selection pressure.Given that many GBM clones were TMZ resistant, we sought

to identify potential alternative chemotherapeutic agents. Wescreened six to eight individual clones from each of three tumorswith the National Cancer Institute (NCI) oncology library of 98drugs and found that every tested tumor showed clone by clonevariability in responses to multiple drugs (Fig. 2F and SI Ap-pendix, Table S2 and Figs. S8 and S9). These data readily suggestreasons why this disease is so refractory to chemotherapiesand suggest that clone-specific therapies could be developedfor GBM treatment.

Integrated Analysis of Functional and Genomic Clonal HeterogeneityPredicts Pathways of Drug Resistance. Copy number (CN) profilingof all samples with Affymetrix SNP6.0 microarrays reveals alandscape of clonal genetic heterogeneity, consistent with pub-lished observations (2, 3, 9) (Fig. 3A). All tumors carried hallmarkGBM alterations such as chr7 gains and chr10 losses, validatingour genetic data. Phylogenetic analysis of CN profiles confirmsthe heterogeneous genetic composition of GBMs and shows thatclones of common origin are genetically closer to each other thanto those from other tumor samples (Fig. 3B and SI Appendix, Fig.S10). We did not find single clones from one patient crossing intothe genomic space of another. These results suggest that the im-pact of our stem cell culturing on genetic stability is negligiblecompared with clonal genetic heterogeneity. They also suggestthat unsorted populations have one or more dominant clones: twounsorted populations (GBM-489, GBM-498) most resemble singleclones (489_13, 498_5) and thus likely have single dominantclones, whereas the unsorted population of tumor GBM-472 issimilar to multiple clones or the primary tumor sample and thus islikely polyclonal.CN analysis reveals clonal chromosomal and focal genomic

alterations (Fig. 3C and SI Appendix, Fig. S11 A–C). For example,gain of chr7 appears in a subset of clones from tumor GBM-482,whereas chr3 gain is only observed in clone 482_3 (Fig. 3D and SIAppendix, Fig. S12). Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)validates these amplifications and highlights gain of chr3 in clone482_3 as a minor cell population of the primary tissue, as well asthe genetic homogeneity of derived clones (Fig. 3D and SI Ap-pendix, Fig. S13). These data confirm genetic polyclonality insample GBM-482 and provide evidence that our derived clonesare homogeneous and originate from the primary tumor sample.Clonal genetic heterogeneity is also apparent at the gene level

(Fig. 3E and SI Appendix, Table S3 and Fig. S14). The mostfrequent clonal variation comprises hallmark GBM events such

100 μm

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Tumor sample

ProliferationDrug response

Fig. 1. Single cell-derived clonal cultures from primary GBMs show a neuralprecursor phenotype and are tumorigenic. (A) Functional characterization ofsingle cell-derived clones. Glioblastoma samples were dissociated into singlecell suspensions. Cells were then sorted using stem cell markers to enrich forclonogenic activity. Single live cells were then expanded in EGF/FGF mediaand analyzed functionally and genomically. (B) Immunostaining of a repre-sentative xenograft shows tumor formation with an infiltrative phenotypereminiscent of human GBM cell behavior in situ (green, human nestinl; red,human GFAP; blue, DAPI).

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as EGFR amplification (2). In total, we found copy numberalterations in 456 genes, including 31 of 100 published frequentlyCN altered genes in GBM (2) (P = 1.2 × 10−25; OR, 19; Fisher’sexact test; SI Appendix, Fig. S15). Clonally altered genes areenriched in functions such as regulation of fibroblast proliferation[6 genes; false discovery rate (FDR), P = 0.022 from g:Profiler(19)], and signaling pathways such as PI3K/AKT (2) (13 genes;FDR, P = 0.014), TGFβ (20) (3 genes; FDR, P = 0.0080), andmTOR (21) (5 genes; FDR, P = 0.020), suggesting that geneticalterations contribute to functional clonal heterogeneity (SI Ap-pendix, Table S4 and Fig. S16). However, we did not observestatistically significant correlations between genetic pathwayalterations and clonal chemoresistance.Clonal heterogeneity is also evident at the level of gene ex-

pression (Fig. 4). We performed microarray analysis of 32 GBMclones from all four tumors and two unsorted populations (GBM-472 and GBM-489). Principal component analysis of clonal ex-pression profiles shows extensive heterogeneity within each tumor

(Fig. 4A). Most clones from the same tumor were more similar toeach other than to clones from a different tumor at the level oftranscription, generally confirming our observed pattern of geneticheterogeneity. However, a few clones were more similar to clonesfrom another tumor, in agreement with previous observations fromsingle cell RNA sequencing (9). In particular, the TMZ-sensitiveclone 482_9 is clearly distinct from other clones of GBM-482.Transcriptional profiling of bulk tumors shows that GBM

comprises several distinct subtypes, generally agreed to be clas-sical, proneural, and mesenchymal (1, 4, 6, 22). We sought toanalyze the relationship of clonal subtypes and TMZ sensitivity.Using the previously defined subtype signatures, we calculatedsubtype scores for 29 GBM clones from all four tumors and twounsorted populations (GBM-472 and GBM-489) to distinguishbetween the three subtypes. Consistent with recent RNA-seq basedsubtyping of single GBM cells (9), these clones show a hybridcellular state with high scores in more than one subtype (Fig. 4Band SI Appendix, Fig. S17). The TMZ-sensitive clone 482_9

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Fig. 2. Individual clones within the same tumor show phenotypic heterogeneity. (A) Differential expression of EGFR, EGFRvIII, and PTEN in individual clonesfrom two patient tumors. EGFRvIII-transfected human fetal brain cell line HF7450NS was used as control. (B) Individual clones of tumor GBM-489 vary in theirability to express markers of differentiation. Staining for human Nestin (green), human GFAP (red), Map2 (green), βIII-tubulin (red), and EdU (red). (C)Variable temozolomide (TMZ) drug responses of individual clones from four different tumors. Clones were treated once with TMZ (0.39–100 μM) andmeasured for viability. Significant differences in TMZ response were observed among clones from two tumors, GBM-472 (P = 0.0011), and GBM-482 (P < 10−4).(D) Heterogeneous promoter methylation of MGMT in GBM-482. Asterisks indicate sensitive cell populations. (E) Heterogeneous protein expression of MGMTin GBM-482. (F) NCI drug library screen reveals clones with variable drug sensitivity in GBM-482. Drugs with at least 50% growth inhibition on individualsamples are shown and are ranked by response variability.

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scores lower in mesenchymal and higher in proneural and clas-sical subtypes compared with resistant clones of tumor GBM-482, suggesting that functional heterogeneity of drug response isdriven by transcriptional heterogeneity and that a mixture ofclones of different subtypes is present in the bulk tumor.To further explore variable TMZ sensitivity within single pa-

tient tumors, we compared gene expression profiles of GBM-482clones. We ranked 777 genes with the most pronounced differ-ential expression in the TMZ-sensitive clone relative to meanexpression in six TMZ-resistant clones (absolute z-score > 2;

Fig. 4C and SI Appendix, Table S5). This list includes a signif-icant enrichment of 28 known cancer genes (P = 2.5 × 10−4;OR, 2.2), suggesting that known cancer pathways are involvedin differential drug response of clones of GBM-482. For ex-ample, the well-defined GBM oncogenes hepatocyte growthfactor receptor (MET) and EGFR show reduced expression inthe TMZ-sensitive clone of GBM-482. qRT-PCR assays con-firm the results of microarray analysis and validate dramaticup-regulation of EGFR and MET in TMZ-resistant clones(>10-fold; Fig. 4D).

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Fig. 3. Heterogeneous clonal genetics as mapped by copy number (CN) analysis. (A) Probe-level CN heat map shows genetic variation in clonal populations.Samples are grouped vertically by patient tumor (left vertical color bar; right label: asterisk, primary sample; diamond, unsorted population). (B) Phylogeneticanalysis confirms the common origin of derived clones (colors) and shows that primary samples (asterisks) are relatively distant from derived clones. (C) Circosplot of segmented CN alterations in GBM-482. Inner circle represents baseline (no CN change), and lines expanding toward the center or the periphery of thediagram represent CN losses or gains, respectively (primary, black; clonal, colored). (D) FISH confirms chr3 gain in primary tumor tissue of GBM-482. (E) Heatmap of frequently altered genes with clonal heterogeneity (at least five alterations).

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Pathway enrichment analysis (19) of differentially expressedgenes in the TMZ-sensitive clone highlights multiple significantpathways and processes (FDR, P < 0.05; Fig. 4E and SI Ap-pendix, Table S6). These include ion channels, neurotransmittersignaling, and synaptic membrane genes with increased expres-sion (e.g., KCNH4, GRM3, and CACNG5), whereas genes in-volved in cell migration (MET) and angiogenesis (WNT7B,EGF) are down-regulated compared with resistant clones.GRM3 encodes a glutamate receptor involved in growth, pro-liferation, and survival of glioma and melanoma cells (23). Acti-vation of MET enhances GBM cell migration (24) and tumor cellresistance in response to DNA damage (25). WNT7B and EGFhave been shown to induce vasculature in the central nervoussystem (26, 27). Interestingly, the TMZ-sensitive clone shows in-creased expression of several genes involved in neurotransmittersignaling such as glutamate receptors (GRIA2, GRIK3, andGRIN2D) (28). Neurotransmitters are involved in brain developmentand proliferation of progenitor cells (29); however, their role intumor biology is less established. This protein family includestargets of approved drugs and therefore is an interesting candi-date for drug repurposing studies. Our data suggest that clonalchemo-response in GBM may be altered by modulation of neu-rotransmitter signaling, and this deserves future exploration. Wedemonstrate an example where transcriptional clonal heterogene-ity correlates with variable drug response and points to po-tential therapeutic mechanisms that could render resistantclones as sensitive.

DiscussionThe very name of this tumor type, glioblastoma multiforme, haslong defined its morphologic heterogeneous nature. There isincreasing appreciation that intratumoral genetic heterogeneityis central to GBM biology (9, 14) and therapeutic resistance (10).A number of recent studies demonstrated intratumoral het-

erogeneity in GBM by showing regional variation and cell-to-celldifferences in expression of receptor tyrosine kinases (12, 13, 15).

Also, recent studies of GBM geography demonstrate maps ofregional copy number and gene expression differences that im-portantly shed light on mechanisms of intratumoral clonal evo-lution in space and time and show that individual tumors cancontain cells corresponding to different GBM subgroups (14).These observations have been extended by a single cell genomicanalysis of a large number of GBM cells from five patienttumors, which strikingly reveals the genomic complexity ofthis tumor (9).To date, however, these features of genetic heterogeneity have

not been directly linked to functional readouts such as drug re-sponse, growth, or differentiation potential. Unless we considerfunctional analysis from single cell derived populations, it will bedifficult to find the precise driver genes and molecular pathwaysresponsible for aggressive behavior of individual clones in a het-erogeneous tumor, particularly if those clones are rare. Directfunctional-genomic correlations at a clonal level will be essentialto developing new GBM therapies.In this study, we developed a strategy to analyze pro-

spectively isolated single GBM clones from fresh tumors thatlinks genotypes of individual subclones with tumorigenic,proliferative, differentiation, and, most importantly, drug re-sponsiveness properties. Our proof-of-principle drug screenshows that single tumors contain clones that respond differ-ently to known cancer drugs, thus highlighting the opportunityto identify resistant clones, define prognostic biomarkers, anddevelop clone-specific combination therapies. Importantly, aclonal analysis of the standard GBM biomarker MGMT didnot correlate with TMZ responsiveness, suggesting that newbiomarkers of drug responsiveness are sorely needed, consis-tent with more recent bulk GBM genomic analyses whichhighlight the subgroup limitations of this marker (1). Wepredict that further studies of larger groups of patient tumors andderived clones are likely to yield additional clonal vulnerabilitiesthat will have clinical relevance.

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Fig. 4. Clonal function is correlated with gene expression and pathway function. (A) Principal component analysis of gene expression profiles of 32 GBMclones and unsorted populations highlights divergence of the TMZ-sensitive clone 482_9. (B) Transcriptional analysis of GBM-482 predicts that the TMZ-sensitive clone (orange, 482_9) belongs to a different GBM subtype than the six TMZ-resistant clones (gray). Three transcriptional subtypes of GBM (classical,mesenchymal, proneural) were analyzed with bootstrapping and permutation tests. (C) Barplot shows differentially expressed genes in the TMZ-sensitiveclone 482_9 compared with mean expression in six TMZ-resistant clones of tumor GBM-482 (absolute z-score > 2). Genes are ranked according to fold change.(D) qRT-PCR analysis confirms significantly lower gene expression ofMET and EGFR in the TMZ-sensitive clone 482_9 compared with six TMZ-resistant clones oftumor GBM-482. (E) Pathway analysis illustrates differentially expressed pathways in the TMZ-sensitive clone with increased (red) and decreased (blue) geneexpression. Selected genes associated with pathways are shown below network diagrams.

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Understanding the significance of cancer genetic heterogeneityand the impact on cancer relapse is enormously challenging andwill require multiple approaches. The integration of genomicstechniques with sophisticated bioinformatic analysis and, mostimportantly, clonal functional assays, provide a direct startingpoint, as it will identify tumor subpopulations that drive growthand therapeutic resistance. Future developments of this strategywould consider deep sequencing of bulk tumors and clones com-bined with computational inference of intratumoral clonal struc-ture (30). In addition, combining single cell approaches (9) withsingle clone derived functional analysis are likely to give a clearerpicture of GBM heterogeneity and the significance of genomic di-versity. Although our approach may not capture all relevant clonesin the primary patient sample, our study focuses on the critical tu-morigenic fraction, as functional assays for the bulk population havenot been developed. We predict that clone-specific functional pro-filing of GBMs will help identify aggressive clones, new cancer drivermechanisms, molecular signatures, and therapeutic vulnerabilitiesemphasizing the potential of cancer treatment at a clone-specificlevel. We envisage a similar clonal functional analysis strategy willbe applicable to deciphering heterogeneity in other types of cancer.One potential application of this approach will be the developmentof anticipatory therapy, directed at the most aggressive relapse-ini-tiating clones identified at the time of patient diagnosis.

Materials and MethodsTwo naïve and two recurrent tumors originated from four individualpatients. Single cell-derived clonal populations were retrieved by FACS livesorting and expanded in stem cell conditions. Intracranial cell transplantationinvolved injection of 100,000 cells into immuno-compromised (NSG) mice.Immunohistochemistry was performed on paraffin-embedded tissue. Clonalprotein expression of EGFRvIII was analyzed with Western blots usingEGFRvIII-transfected human fetal brain cells (HF7450NS) as a control. Differ-entiation assays were carried out in growth factor withdrawal conditions.

AlamarBlue assay was performed for cell survival analysis after drug treatment(temozolomide; National Cancer Institute oncology drug library). MGMTpromoter methylation was determined by nested two-stage methylation-specific PCR (18), using CpGenome Universal Methylated DNA (Millipore)and patient blood DNA as controls. Genetic profiling of GBM samples wascarried out with Affymetrix Human SNP Array 6.0 microarrays, usingCRMAv2 (31) for preprocessing, the CBS algorithm (32) for genome seg-mentation, and custom R scripts for filtering and global analyses. Broadgenomic segments were filtered. Matched blood reference was used forthree tumors, whereas a median diploid genome of 226 patients (33) com-bined with filtering of polymorphic copy number variants (34) was used onthe unmatched tumor GBM-489. Phylogenetic analysis of copy numbervariation was conducted with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure usingthe MrBayes software (35). To enumerate copy number changes of chro-mosomes 7, 3, and 17, the Urovision probe kit (Abbott Laboratories) wasused. Transcriptional profiling was performed with Affymetrix Human Gene1.0 ST microarrays, using the RMA algorithm for preprocessing and z-scoresfor differential expression estimation. Pathway enrichment analysis wasperformed with g:Profiler (19) and visualized as Enrichment Maps (36) withCytoscape. All experiments were conducted on cell cultures below 20 pas-sages. The identity of all samples was confirmed by genotyping analysis withGenotyping Console (Partek), and by short tantem repeats (STR) analysis.Extended description of methods is available in SI Appendix, SI Materialsand Methods.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank P. A. Penttilä, A. Khandani, S. Zhao,T. Velauthapillai, and L. Jamieson for preparative flow cytometry,Dr. A. Guha for kindly providing the EGFRvIII plasmid, and the support ofthe Toronto Western Hospital Brain Tumor Bank led by Dr. Gelareh Zadeh.Flow cytometry was performed in The SickKids-University Health NetworkFlow Cytometry Facility. P.B.D. is supported by grants from Ontario Institutefor Cancer Research with funds from the Government of Ontario, CanadianInstitutes for Health Research (CIHR), Genome Canada, Canadian CancerSociety, the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, Jessica’s Footprint Foun-dation, and the Hopeful Minds Foundation. G.D.B. is supported by NationalResource for Network Biology (US National Institutes of Health Grant P41GM103504), and M.W. is supported by a CIHR grant.

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