The roles of
hypoxia-induced and stem cell-associated genes in the development of
malignancy and tumour progression are well known. However, there are a limited number of studies analysing the impact of
mRNA expression levels of
hypoxia-induced and stem cell-associated genes in the tissues of brain tumours and
glioblastoma patients. In this study, tumour tissues from patients with
glioblastoma multiforme and tumour adjacent tissues were analysed. We investigated
mRNA expression levels of
hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α),
hypoxia-inducible factor-2α (HIF-2α),
carbonic anhydrase 9 (CA9),
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF),
glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1) and
osteopontin (OPN), and stem cell-associated genes
survivin,
epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), human
telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), Nanog and octamer binding
transcription factor 4 (OCT4) using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Our data revealed higher
mRNA expression levels of
hypoxia-induced and stem cell-associated genes in tumour tissue than levels in the tumour adjacent tissues in patients with
glioblastoma multiforme. A strong positive correlation between the
mRNA expression levels of HIF-2α, CA9,
VEGF, GLUT-1 and OPN suggests a specific
hypoxia-associated profile of
mRNA expression in
glioblastoma multiforme. Additionally, the results indicate the role of stem-cell-related genes in tumour
hypoxia. Kaplan-Maier analysis revealed that high
mRNA expression levels of
hypoxia-induced markers showed a trend towards shorter overall survival in
glioblastoma patients (P=0.061). Our data suggest that
mRNA expression levels of
hypoxia-induced genes are important tumour markers in patients with
glioblastoma multiforme.