Figure 7.

High levels of TIP-1 expression correlate with advanced staging and poor prognosis of human malignant gliomas. (a) TIP-1 expression in human gliomas. Representative tissue core images from a tissue microarray stained with a TIP-1 antibody (brown) demonstrate differential TIP-1 protein levels in normal brain and gliomas. Scale bar: 200 μm. (b) Semi-quantitative histological evaluation of TIP-1 expression within human glioma tissues. TIP-1 level was scored from 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest), mean expression scores multiplied by the percentage of positive cells in the field (Quick's combined score system) are presented for normal brain, grade I, grade II, grade III and grade IV gliomas, respectively, in a graphical format using error bars with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Statistically significant differences of TIP-1 expression (ANOVA) were noted between normal brain tissue and gliomas of varying stages of malignancy (*, p<0.001) and between the advanced (III or IV) and low grade tumors (Student T-test, #, p<0.005). Number of samples in each group was shown under the bar graph. Box plots show no correlation of TIP-1 expression levels with patient's age or gender (F, female; M, male). (c) Kaplan-Meier plot of patient survival time upon relative TIP-1 expression levels. Patients within the top 40% of TIP-1 expression were defined as the high expression group, and those in the bottom 40% were defined as the low expression group. A log rank test was used to evaluate differences between groups.