{"doi":"10.1101/2021.09.01.458565","title":"Horizontal mitochondrial transfer from the microenvironment increases glioblastoma tumorigenicity","abstract":"Abstract While dynamic microenvironmental interactions drive tumor growth and therapeutic resistance, the underlying direct cell-cell communication mechanisms remain poorly understood. We identified horizontal mitochondrial transfer as a mechanism that enhances tumorigenesis in glioblastoma. This transfer occurs primarily from brain-resident cells, including astrocytes, and can be appreciated in vitro and in vivo through intercellular connections between GBM cells and non-malignant host cells. The acquisition of astrocyte mitochondria drives an overall enhancement of mitochondrial membrane potential and metabolic capacity, while increasing glioblastoma cell self-renewal and tumor-initiating capacity. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that mitochondrial transfer augments the tumorigenic capacity of glioblastoma cells and reveals a previously unknown cell-cell communication mechanism that drives tumor growth. One-Sentence Summary Mitochondrial transfer from astrocytes to glioblastoma alters metabolic profile and enhances the tumor-initiation capacity.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":226397,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9518,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":240676,"name":"Defne Bayık","orcid":"0000-0002-4740-8869","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":734322,"name":"Sarah Williford","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240681,"name":"Adam Lauko","orcid":"0000-0001-5654-0784","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105381,"name":"Yadi Zhou","orcid":"0000-0002-6049-0545","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":427968,"name":"Gauravi Deshpande","orcid":"0000-0002-1621-1553","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":829802,"name":"Juliana Seder","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329334,"name":"Jason A. Mears","orcid":"0000-0002-5199-4872","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":69831,"name":"Feixiong Cheng","orcid":"0000-0002-1736-2847","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":98599,"name":"Anita B. Hjelmeland","orcid":"0000-0003-2200-3248","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240691,"name":"Justin D. Lathia","orcid":"0000-0003-3168-7290","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240683,"name":"Dionysios C. Watson","orcid":"0000-0002-9146-5641","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":26,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:34.185847Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}