Source
Molecular Medicine, Northwest Hospital, Seattle, Washington 98125, USA. rphuang@nwlink.com
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
Connexin43 (cx43), a gap junction protein, is implicated in the suppression of tumor cell growth. Numerous cancer cells show a reduction or loss of cx43 expression compared to their normal counterparts. Our previous studies suggest that cx43 expression is decreased in a variety of human brain tumor cell lines. To further investigate the role of cx43 in the development of human gliomas, we performed the present study on human glioma grades I-IV.
METHODS:
Immunohistochemistry was performed on paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 18 human gliomas to analyze the expression levels of cx43 in different stages of human gliomas.
RESULTS:
High levels of cx43 were observed in all normal brain tissue and in glioma grades I and II. In contrast, the expression of cx43 was very weak in grade III gliomas and almost undetectable in grade IV gliomas.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our data support the hypothesis that reduction of cx43 is involved in the progression of human gliomas.