Investigation of PTEN mRNA and protein expression in human gliomas

Glioma is the most frequently occurring primary brain tumor in neurosurgery. The PTEN tumor suppressor gene has an essential biological role in the formation of gliomas. The levels of extrons expression of PTEN mRNA in gliomas maybe have some difference with normal brain tissues. In addition, the expression of PTEN protein maybe various among different histological grade gliomas. In this regard, the levels of exons expression of PTEN mRNA in the tissues of 56 tumors and 20 normal brain of Chinese patients were assessed by reverse transcription-poly-merase chain reaction(RT-PCR), and the levels of expression of PTEN protein among various grade gliomas of Chinese patients by immunohistochemistry. In our investigation, the expressions of extrons 1–9 and 5–8 PTEN mRNA in glioma were 0.41±0.17 and 0.39±0.15, while they were 0.59±0.20 and 0.63±0.18 in normal brain tissues. The difference was significant between them(p≪0.05). The expressions of extrons 1–9 PTEN mRNA between low grade and high grade gliomas were 0.42±0.15 and 0.29±0.20(p≪0.01). The expressions of extrons 5–8 PTEN mRNA between low and high grade glioms were 0.44±0.18 and 0.27±0.11(p≪0.01). The OD values between low and high grade tumors were 0.1183±0.0098 and 0.13143±0.0104. The levels of expression of PTEN protein decreased with the increasing of glioma grade. In conclussion, the abnormal expression of PTEN gene play an important role in the occurrence and development of gliomas, the expression of PTEN protein may reflect the differentiation and invasive potential of glioma tissues to varying grade. The alteration in the expression of PTEN is correlated with the tumorigenesis and progression of gliomas.