Gliomas account for more than 50% of all brain tumors and are by far the most common primary brain tumors in adults. Despite development of new diagnostic technologies, the survival rate is extremely low with only 3% five years after diagnosis. The clinical outcome of malignant gliomas depends on the invasion of isolated tumor cells in the nomal brain tissue. Migrating cells can escape the surgical ablation of the tumor and are then the prime targets of post-surgical radio- and adjuvant chemotherapy.
Our goal is to characterize this highly invasive cell population and investigate the complete signalling-cascade downstream of CD95 (Kleber et al., 2008).