Gene expression- and function-based identification of biomarkers for diagnosis of glioma malignancies

Abstract

Glioma is one of the most common and highly malignant brain tumors, with the astrocytic glioma being the most prevailing and characterized by the worst survival prognosis among all gliomas. The gedree of glioma malignancy at the early stages of the tumor gliomagenesis is sometimes difficult to evaluate by using conventional morphological criteria. Recent studies show that certain phenotypes of gliomas, e.g. glioma malignancy, resistance to therapy and relapses are associated with the methylation frequency of tumor-specific genes. However, the methylation effects on the particular gene function and the connection between the gene expresion and tumor phenotype are still unclear. Current results of our Laboratory experimental data will be presented in this lecture: 1) determined levels of expression of the genes selected from different methylome projects in gliomas of different malignancy grades, 2) assessment of the importance of these genes for cancer cell viability as well as the resistance to anticancer drug treatment by manipulating expression the target gene in cell cultures, and 3) designing diagnostic protocols for detection of the expression of the functionally relevant gene in glioma patients samples.