Characterization of pituitary tumor transforming gene in meningiomas.

Background: Pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) is an oncogene and has been detected in several tumors of unrelated histological origin. However, its role in meningiomas is unknown so far. We aim to investigate PTTG expression in intracranial meningiomas, and clarify the relationship between PTTG and the histopathological types of tumors.

Materials And Methods: Over a 7-year period, 195 meningioma specimens were collected from 195 patients. Seventeen nonneoplastic meningeal tissues were used as controls. We analyze PTTG expression by tissue microarray with immunohistochemistry.

Results: Immunoexpression of PTTG was identified in 172 of 195 meningiomas, accounting for 88.2%. All of immunoexpression of tumors were found to be cytoplasmic, and no nuclear expression was observed. In the control group, there were 3 of 17 specimens (17.6%) with positive PTTG expression. The percentage of high expression WHO subtypes of meningiomas ranged from 0% to 95.7%. We further stratified the tumors into 3 subgroups based on pathological grading (WHO grade I, WHO grade II and III, control), and there was significant intergroup difference in PTTG expression (p<0.001).

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that PTTG was expressed in most of meningioma tissues, and the degree of PTTG immunostaining was variable in the subtypes of tumors. Further investigations into PTTG expression are required to broaden the pathogenesis research of meningiomas.