Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0017638 (glioma)
 30,880 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Melanoma-associated antigens (MAGEs) were initially identified in melanoma and have since been widely studied. Melanoma-associated antigen-As (MAGE-As), a subfamily of MAGEs, are expressed in germ cells and various types of cancer, and are considered to be ideal targets for cancer immunotherapy. Glial cells and melanocytes originate from the neural ectoderm, so tumors derived from these two types of cells, i.e. gliomas and melanomas, may have common biological characteristics. However, studies on the expression of the MAGE-A family in gliomas are limited and conflicting. In the present study, the expression levels of MAGE-A1, -A3 and -A11 were detected by immunohistochemistry, and the association of their expression levels with the clinicopathological parameters, overall survival (OS) and ki-67 labeling indices of glioma patients were analyzed. The results showed that i) the expression levels of MAGE-A1, -A3 and -A11 proteins in the glioma tissues were 64.1, 51.3 and 57.7%, respectively and that no MAGE-A1, -A3 or -A11 expression was detected in the normal brain specimens; ii) the expression levels of MAGE-A1 and -A11 increased with ascending pathological grades and were positively correlated with the ki-67 labeling index; and iii) the OS of the patients in the groups with high MAGE-A1 (P=0.005) and -A11 (P=0.019) expression was statistically lower compared with the groups with low expression and no significant differences in OS were detected between the patients in the groups with high and low MAGE-A3 expression (P=0.304). Based on these results, we conclude that MAGE-A1, -A3 and -A11 may be used as ideal targets for glioma immunotherapy, and that MAGE-A1 and -A11 expression may be involved in tumor cell proliferation. These proteins may be potential indicators of a poor prognosis in glioma patients.
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PMID:The expression and clinical significance of melanoma-associated antigen-A1, -A3 and -A11 in glioma. 2394 77

Melanoma-associated antigen (MAGE) family genes have been considered as potentially promising targets for anticancer immunotherapy. MAGED4 was originally identified as a glioma-specific antigen. Current knowledge about MAGED4 expression in glioma is only based on mRNA analysis and MAGED4 protein expression has not been elucidated. In the present study, we investigated this point and found that MAGED4 mRNA and protein were absent or very lowly expressed in various normal tissues and glioma cell line SHG44, but overexpressed in glioma cell lines A172,U251,U87-MG as well as glioma tissues, with significant heterogeneity. Furthermore, MAGED4 protein expression was positively correlated with the glioma type and grade. We also found that the expression of MAGED4 inversely correlated with the overall methylation status of the MAGED4 promoter CpG island. Furthermore, when SHG44 and A172 with higher methylation were treated with the DNA demethylating agent 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5-AZA-CdR) reactivation of MAGED4 mRNA was mediated by significant demethylation in SHG44 instead of A172. However, 5-AZA-CdR treatment had no effect on MAGED4 protein in both SHG44 and A172 cells. In conclusion, MAGED4 is frequently and highly expressed in glioma and is partly regulated by DNA methylation. The results suggest that MAGED4 might be a promising target for glioma immunotherapy combined with 5-AZA-CdR to enhance its expression and eliminate intratumor heterogeneity.
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PMID:MAGED4 expression in glioma and upregulation in glioma cell lines with 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine treatment. 2487 Jul 46