Understanding of the differentiation profile of brain tumor stem cells (BTSCs),the key ones among tumor cell popula-tion,through comparison with neural stem cells(NSCs)would lend insight into the origin of glioma and ultimately yieldnew approaches to fight this intractable disease.Here,we cultured and purified BTSCs from surgical glioma specimensand NSCs from human fetal brain tissue,and further analyzed their cellular biological behaviors,especially their differ-entiation property.As expected,NSCs differentiated into mature neural phenotypes. In the same differentiation condition,however,BTSCs exhibited distinguished differences.Morphologically,cells grew flattened and attached for the first week,but gradually aggregated and reformed floating tumor sphere thereafter.During the corresponding period,the expressionrate of undifferentiated cell marker CD 133 and nestin in BTSCs kept decreasing,but 1 week later,they regained ascend-ing tendency.Interestingly,the differentiated cell markers GFAP and β-tubulinⅢ showed an expression change inverse tothat of undifferentiated cell markers.Taken together,BTSCs were revealed to possess a capacity to resist differentiation,which actually represents the malignant behaviors ofglioma. Understanding of the differentiation profile of brain tumor stem cells (BTSCs), the key ones among tumor cell popularization, through comparison with neural stem cells (NSCs) would lend insight into the origin of glioma and eventually yield new approaches to fight this intractable disease . Here, we cultured and purified BTSCs from surgical fetal glioma specimens and further analyzed their cellular biological behaviors, especially their differ- entiation property. As expected, NSCs differentiated into mature neural phenotypes. In the same differentiation condition, However, BTSCs were shown distinguished differences. Morphologically, cells grew flattened and attached for the first week, but gradually aggregated and reformed floating tumors sphere. .During the corresponding period, the expressionrate of undifferentiated cell marker CD 133 and nestin in BTSCs kept decreasing, but 1 week later, they regained ascend-ing tendency.Interestingly, the differentiated cell markers GFAP and β-tubulinⅢ showed an expression change inverse tothat of undifferentiated cell markers. Together, BTSCs were revealed to possess a capacity to resist differentiation, which actually represents the malignant behaviors of glioma.