Primary Brain Tumors Differ in Their Expression of Octamer Deoxyribonucleic Acid-binding Transcription Factors from Long-Term Cultured Glioma Cell Lines

NERVOUS SYSTEM-SPECIFIC TRANSCRIPTION factors that bind to the octameric deoxyribonucleic acid sequence motif ATGCAAAT (or ATTTGCAT) are known as N-Oct proteins. Neurons and glia contain the ubiquitous Oct-1 protein and four polypeptide complexes termed N-Oct-2, N-Oct-3, N-Oct-4, and N-Oct-5. Previously, we showed that N-Oct proteins are differentially expressed by human neuroblastoma and glioblastoma cell lines in vitro. We have now extended this work to freshly isolated human primary and metastatic brain tumors. Contrary to brain tumor cell lines, of the five astrocytomas and three glioblastomas analyzed, all but two tumors displayed the complete N-Oct protein profile, irrespective of histopathological tumor grade