The astroblastoma and its possible cytogenic relationship to the tanycyte. An electron microscopic, immunohistochemical, tissue- and organ-culture study.

Two examples of cerebral astroblastoma have been studied by electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry, one of them having been maintained in vitro in an organ-culture matrix system for 8 months and the explants studied by light and electron microscopy at different time intervals. The fine structural characteristics were those of a glial cell type with features intermediary between those of astrocytes and ependymocytes. They recapitulated the structure of the tanycyte, a glial precursor cell which is normally found scattered along the ependymal lining of the embryonal and neonatal mammalian brain, but is distinct from epithelial ependymocytes. The possible origin of some astroblastomas from such a cell would account for a number of characteristics in this enigmatic type of glioma.