The aim of the present study was to identify the disease‑associated genes and their functions involved in the development of three types of glioma (astrocytoma, glioblastoma and oligodendroglioma) with DNA microarray technology, and to analyze their differences and correlations. First, the gene expression profile GSE4290 was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, then the probe‑l...

The "regulators of g-protein signalling" (RGS) comprise a large family of proteins that limit by virtue of their GTPase accelerating protein domain the signal transduction of G-protein coupled receptors. RGS proteins have been implicated in various neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, drug abuse, depression and anxiety and aggressive behaviour. Since conditions associated with a lar...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Age is inversely correlated with clinical outcome and a strong prognostic factor for the course of most primary brain tumors including malignant astrocytoma, i.e. anaplastic astrocytoma and glioblastoma. We here review available clinical outcome data and discuss future directions of clinical research. RECENT FINDINGS The standard of care in patients with malignant astrocytom...

BACKGROUND Pilocytic astrocytomas occur predominantly in childhood. In contrast to the posterior fossa location, hypothalamo-chiasmatic pilocytic astrocytomas display a worse prognosis often leading to multiple surgical procedures and/or several lines of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to achieve long-term control. Hypothalamo-chiasmatic pilocytic astrocytomas and cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma...

PK 11195 and DAA1106 bind with high-affinity to the translocator protein (TSPO, formerly known as the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor). TSPO expression in glial cells increases in response to cytokines and pathological stimuli. Accordingly, [(11)C]-PK 11195 and [(11)C]-DAA1106 are recognized molecular imaging (MI) agents capable of monitoring changes in TSPO expression occurring in vivo and ...

Astrocytomas are rarely found in the eye. In the literature which we have reviewed, we have found only five well-documented cases (McLean, 1937; Marks, Willis, and Anderson, I939; Boles, Naugle, and Samson, 1958; Foos, Straatsma, and Allen, I965; Cleasby, Fung, and Shekter, I967) which were not associated with tuberous sclerosis or with neurofibromatosis, and were not formed by an intraocular e...

Background: Supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumors (sPNET) are rarely occurred in adults. Only 39 cases have been reported in the past decade. The transformation from low grade to aggressive astrocytoma is well known. However, such convert from a low-grade astrocytoma (LGA) into a sPNET between two completely different tumors is rarer. Case Presentation: This report discussed a 36-year...

Astrocytomas account for the majority of malignant brain tumors diagnosed in both adult and pediatric patients. The therapies available to treat these neoplasms are limited, and the prognosis associated with high-grade lesions is extremely poor. Mer (MerTK) and Axl receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK) are expressed at abnormally high levels in a variety of malignancies, and these receptors are known...

Wnt inhibitory factor-1 (WIF-1) acts as a Wnt antagonist and tumor suppressor, but hypermethylation of WIF-1 gene promoter and low expression of WIF-1 activate Wnt signaling aberrantly and induce the development of several human tumors. By using RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and methylation-specific PCR, we analyzed the expression and methylation of WIF-1 in 4 normal brain tissues, 35 freshly re...

While allelic losses and mutations of tumor suppressor genes implicated in the etiology of astrocytoma have been widely assessed, the role of epigenetics is still a matter of study. We analyzed the frequency of promoter hypermethylation by methylation-specific PCR (MSP) in five tumor suppressor genes (PTEN, MGMT, RASSF1A, p14(ARF), and p16(INK4A)), in astrocytoma samples and cell lines. RASSF1A...