1. Reduced connexin43 expression in high-grade human brain glioma cells.
- Author
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Huang RP, Hossain MZ, Sehgal A, and Boynton AL
- Subjects
- Astrocytoma metabolism, Astrocytoma pathology, Brain Neoplasms pathology, Connexins metabolism, Glioblastoma metabolism, Glioblastoma pathology, Glioma pathology, Humans, Immunohistochemistry, Paraffin Embedding, Tumor Cells, Cultured, Brain Neoplasms metabolism, Connexin 43 metabolism, Glioma metabolism
- 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.
- Published
- 1999
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