β-catenin expression in glioma with reference to autigenesis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

β-catenin is reported to have multiple functions associated with not only cell adhesion but also tumorigenesity and cell polarity. Angiogenesis is considered to play an important role in the development of malignant brain tumors. In this study, we researched the concerning of β-catenin to the vascular proliferation in brain tumors from the point of view of the cell adhesion molecules.We performed immunohistochemical analyses of β-catenin in 45 cases of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea induced rat gliomas and 32 cases of glioblastomas in human. As a result, β-catenin was found concentrated in the vascular cell-cell junction and internal surface of the vascular lumen in all the normal brains. In contrast, proliferating VCs in tumors were stained homogeneously in the cytoplasm with or without nucleus. The proliferative potential of VCs evaluated by nuclear organizer region-associated argyrophilic protein (AgNOR) was higher in all types of the tumors than in the normal brains, and was basically in pa … More rallel with the proliferative potential of the tumors. Thus, the aberrant localization of β-catenin may be associated with vigorous transformation of VCs through acquisition of the vascular proliferation and loss of cell polarity in VCs. It was considered that β-catenin might be a possible regulator of angiogenesis in brain tumors.In vitro study, when bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs) were cultured in a slide, β-catenin was basically speckled at cell-cell junction. However, when the slide coated with fibronectin induced capillary like formations, BAECs were homogeneously and intensely stained for β-catenin in the cytoplasm. Subsequently, when BAECs were cultured with condition medium of rat C6 glioma cells, more capillary like formations and higher proliferative potential evaluated by AgNOR were observed compared with control group. These results were considered to support the hypothesis that β-catenin might be associated with the angiogenesis in brain tumors in accordance with in vivo results. Less