Study on the correlations of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase with human glioma

Objective To investigate the expression patterns of Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) in glioma and its clinical significances. Methods The expression patherns of GAPDH was measured in 51 glioma samples by immunohistochemical assay. All of these samples were surgically removed from patients with glioma and comfirmed by pathological diagnosis during November 1999 to January 2004 in this hospital. According to the classification criteria of WHO 2000, there were 16 patients with grade Ⅱ glioma including astrocytoma (n=13), oligodendroglioma (n=1), ependymocytoma (n=1) and mixed astrocyto-oligodendroglioma (n=1); 17 patients with grade Ⅲ glioma including anaplastic astrocytoma (n=9), anaplastic oligodendroglioma (n=7) and anaplastic ependymocytoma (n=1); 18 patients with grade Ⅳ glioma-all of glioblastocytoma; 6 patients with grade Ⅰ meningioma-fibrous meningioma and 3 cases of grade Ⅱ meningioma-atypical meningioma; 5 patients with pituitary adenoma including pituitary growth hormone/prolactinoma (n = 1), pituitary prolactinoma (n = 1) and pituitary polyendocrinoma (FSH-LH-TSH) (n = 3). Results (1) The positive reaction presented in call samples of grade Ⅱ-Ⅳ gliomas by immunochemical staining, but negative reaction occurred in meningioma, pituitary adenoma and normal controls. (2)The expression level of GAPDH was varied among gliomas with different pathological grading, the positive cell detection rate of GAPDH were 12.8% in grade Ⅱ gliomas, 22.9% and 44.5% in grade Ⅲ and Ⅳ gliomas respectively. There were significant differences among the three groups (P 0.05). The positive cell detection rate of GAPDH was positively correlated with the pathological grading of gliomas (r = 0.606, P 0.05). Conclusion The increased GAPDH expression is characteristic presenting in patients with glioma, and the more malignancy of gliomas the higher level expression of GAPDH. It is demonstrated that GAPDH may play an important role in biological behavior of glioma and the GAPDH may be chosen as another target for antisense gene therapy in human glioma.