Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether specific HOXA epigenetic signatures could differentiate glioma with distinct biological, pathological, and clinical characteristics.
Methods: We evaluated HOXA3, 7, 9, and 10 methylation in 63 glioma samples by MassARRAY and pyrosequencing.
Results: We demonstrated the direct statistical correlation between the level of methylation of all HOXA genes examined and WHO grading.
Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are vascular lesions of the CNS characterized by abnormally enlarged capillary cavities. CCMs can occur as sporadic or familial autosomal dominant form. Familial cases are associated with mutations in CCM1[K-Rev interaction trapped 1 (KRIT1)], CCM2 (MGC4607) and CCM3 (PDCD10) genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although the prognosis for malignant gliomas is normally dismal, it's not infrequent in neurooncologist's experience to find cases with unusually prolonged survival. In order to understand what factors influence survival of high grade glioma patients, a cohort of 196 high (III-IV) grade glioma patients was investigated for possible association between (1) survival and age at diagnosis; (2) survival and micronuclei in tumor tissue; (3) survival and gender; (4) micronuclei in tumor tissue and age at diagnosis.
Results: Patients diagnosed at an older age (>64 years) had a significantly higher hazard as compared to younger patients (
Purpose: Hypothalamic or locally produced growth factors and cytokines control pituitary development, functioning, and cell division. We evaluated the expression of the chemokine stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF1) and its receptor CXCR4 in human pituitary adenomas and normal pituitary tissues and their role in cell proliferation.
Experimental Design: The expression of SDF1 and CXCR4 in 65 human pituitary adenomas and 4 human normal pituitaries was determined by reverse transcription-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and confocal immunofluorescence.
Recent evidence indicates that cancer cells express chemokine (CK) receptors and that their signaling is crucial for tumor proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis. The profiles of expression of CXC CK receptors (CXCR1-5) and their main ligands (growth-related oncogene, GRO1-2-3/CXCL1-2-3; interleukin 8, IL-8/CXCL8; monokine-induced gamma-interferon MIG/CXCL9; gamma-interferon-inducible-protein-10, IP-10/CXCL10; stromal cell-derived factor-1, SDF1/CXCL12; B-cell activating CK-1, BCA-1/CXCL13) were analyzed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in surgical samples of human meningiomas. All the five receptors displayed high percentages of positive cases: 92% CXCR1, 89% CXCR2, 83% CXCR3, 78% CXCR4, and 94% CXCR5.
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