title: Proliferative assessment of GFAP-positive and GFAP-negative glioma cells by nucleolar organizer region staining.
abstract: The proliferative potential of two types of tumor cells that did or did not express glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in 19 cases of high-grade gliomas, including nine anaplastic astrocytomas (WHO criteria, grade 3) and 10 glioblastoma multiforme (grade 4), was investigated by a combined staining technique, one-step silver colloid method for nucleolar organizer region-associated argyrophilic protein (Ag-NOR) and immunocytochemistry for GFAP. The mean numbers of Ag-NORs in GFAP-positive cells and GFAP-negative cells of high-grade gliomas were 2.68 and 3.74, respectively. The value of GFAP-negative cells was significantly greater than that of GFAP-positive cells (p less than 0.01). Our results show that, by means of the immunocytochemistry for GFAP, tumor cells in human high-grade gliomas can be divided into two groups expressing GFAP or not, and that the mean number of Ag-NORs of GFAP-negative cells is more representative of the degree of histological malignancy than that of positive cells. It is considered that the proliferative assessment of GFAP-negative tumor cells in high-grade gliomas by combined staining of Ag-NOR silver staining and GFAP immunocytochemistry is useful for understanding the histological malignancy of high-grade gliomas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Gifu University School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hara
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Niikawa
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mori
mesh_terms: D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002455:Cell Division; D003102:Colloids; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000032:analysis*; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D012834:Silver
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D012834:Silver