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Diffuse Gliomas (diffuse + glioma)

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Medical Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Low grade diffuse gliomas: Shared cellular composition and morphometric differences

NEUROPATHOLOGY, Issue 5 2008
Sawako Kinjo
Low grade diffuse gliomas arising in the brain are challenging to treat because of their ability to infiltrate adjacent tissue. We attempted to clarify the cellular composition and histopathological features of low grade gliomas by utilizing morphometric and immunohistochemical analyses. Seventy-eight cases of low grade gliomas were examined including 21 diffuse astrocytomas (DA), 36 oligodendrogliomas (OL), and 21 oligoastrocytomas (OA), based on the WHO classification system. Moreover, OL were subdivided into three types based on the morphological characteristics advocated by Daumas-Duport et al.: OL type I, OL type II, and OL type III. The cellularity, nuclear form factor, and conditional entropy corresponding to the nuclear pleomorphism were measured in each sample by the image analysis software "Gunmetry." Twenty-two cases were immunohistochemically analyzed for the expression of several antigens. Morphometric data indicated that the cellularity of OL type II was significantly higher than that of DA, and that the conditional entropy of OL type III was significantly lower than that of DA. Although the results of the immunohistochemical studies were almost consistent with previous reports, there were significant differences in the expression of GFAP, nestin and p53 between DA and OL. Double immunostaining revealed that expression of Olig2 and GFAP, and Olig2 and nestin was mutually exclusive in most glioma cells. Moreover, the coexpression of nestin and GFAP occurred in DA and OA, but not in OL. We conclude that each glioma include cells expressing GFAP, cells expressing nestin, and cells expressing Olig2 in a characteristic proportion for each tumor type. We suggest that diffuse gliomas share cellular compositions in different ratios and that they can be distinguished by morphometrical analysis. [source]

Suppression of putative tumour suppressor gene GLTSCR2 expression in human glioblastomas,

THE JOURNAL OF PATHOLOGY, Issue 2 2008
Y-J Kim
Abstract Glioma tumour-suppressor candidate region gene 2 (GLTSCR2/PICT-1) is localized within the well-known 1.4 Mb tumour-suppressive region of chromosome 19q, which is frequently altered in various human tumours, including diffuse gliomas. Aside from its chromosomal localization, several lines of evidence, including PTEN-phosphorylating and cell-killing activities, suggests that GLTSCR2 participates in the suppression of tumour growth and development. However, little is known about the biological functions and molecular mechanisms of GLTSCR2 as a tumour suppressor gene. We investigated the pathological significance of GLTSCR2 expression in association with the development and progression of glioblastomas, the most common malignant brain tumour. We used real-time PCR and western blot analysis to examine the expression levels of GLTSCR2 mRNA and protein in glioblastomas, normal brain tissue and in non-glial tumour tissue of different origin, and found that GLTSCR2 expression is down-regulated in glioblastomas. In addition, direct sequencing analysis and fluorescence in situ hybridization clearly demonstrates the presence of genetic alterations, such as a nonsense mutation and deletion, in the GLTSCR2 gene in glioblastomas. Finally, our immunohistochemical study demonstrates that GLTSCR2 is sequentially down-regulated according to the histological malignant progression of the astrocytic glial tumour. Taken together, our results suggest that GLTSCR2 is involved in astrocytic glioma progression. Copyright © 2008 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]