The expression of SALL4 in patients with gliomas: high level of SALL4 expression is correlated with poor outcome

The spalt-like transcription factor 4 (SALL4) gene has been demonstrated to be overexpressed in many malignancies, but little is known about its expression in gliomas. To explore the expression of SALL4 in patients with gliomas and the relationship between SALL4 expression and clinicopathologic characteristics, qPCR and immunohistochemical staining were used to investigate the SALL4 expression level in 54 glioma specimens and seven normal brain tissues. In vitro, siRNAs against SALL4 in U251 cell line were constructed and cell proliferation was evaluated by CCK8 assay. The SALL4 expression level in glioma was significantly higher than that in normal brain tissues (P < 0.05). Both qPCR and immunohistochemical analysis found that the expression of SALL4 was tightly correlated with glioma pathology grade (P < 0.05). Analysis using glioma and normal brain tissues revealed that SALL4 was positively proportionated to glioma cell differentiation with high sensitivity (92.59 %) and specificity (85.71 %). Survival analysis indicated the SALL4 expression was an independent prognostic factor. High level of SALL4 expression was correlated with poor outcome in patients with gliomas. This result agreed with the negative correlation between SALL4 expression and overall survival period obtaining in GBM patients from the cancer genome atlas database. The CCK8 experiments demonstrated SALL4 could significantly inhibit cell proliferation in U251 cell line (P < 0.05). The findings of the current study indicated that the SALL4 may play an important role in progression, development and maintenance of glioma.