Establishment of GBM and MM-BM Cell Lines

GBM (n = 14) and MM-BM (n = 12) cell lines were established from surgically removed tumor tissues of GBM and MM-BM patients undergoing surgery at the Department of Neurosurgery of University Hospital of Siena, under approval by the Committee on Human Research. Tumor tissues were processed within 60 min following surgical removal and were dissected into fragments by mechanical digestion (1–2 mm³) washed with PBS 1X and cultured, according to the size in T25 cm² or T75 cm² tissue culture flasks. Cells were cultured using RPMI Medium 1640 (Biochrom, Berlin, Germany), supplemented with 20% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS, Biochrom, Berlin, Germany), 2mML-glutamine and 100 µg/µl penicillin/streptomycin (Biochrom, Berlin, Germany) up to the 5th step of culture and with 10% heat-inactivated FBS for subsequent ones. MM cell lines (n = 11), kindly provided by Dr. Roberta Mortarini (Human Tumors Immunobiology Unit, Department of Research, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy) were established as previously described [25 (link)]. Origin of cell lines and their characteristics are described in Additional file 1: Tables S1–S3.