Reduced connexin43 expression in high-grade human brain glioma cells.
OBJECTIVE
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.
Huang
R P
RP
Molecular Medicine, Northwest Hospital, Seattle, Washington 98125, USA. rphuang@nwlink.com
Hossain
M Z
MZ
Sehgal
A
A
Boynton
A L
AL
D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D018031:Connexin 43 / Q000378:metabolism*; D017630:Connexins / Q000378:metabolism; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D005910:Glioma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured