Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) 4 is a high-affinity transmembrane receptor for several members of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family. FGFR4 is reportedly expressed in several cancer types, including human astrocytomas. However, the expression of FGFR4 across gliomas of different grades and histologies has not been extensively investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed immunohistochemistry (IHC) of 170 grade II-IV human gliomas from our tumor bank, including 117 GBMs and 53 lower grade gliomas of astrocytic and oligodendroglial lineage. From the same biopsies we have snap-frozen tissue for qPCR and western blot currently under analysis. RESULTS: So far, IHC has showed that FGFR4 is almost uniformly expressed in human gliomas, although at a varying degree. Microscopy revealed that most tumors stained both in the nuclei as well as in the cytoplasm. We observed both a homogenous and a granular staining pattern of the cytoplasm. In particular transition zone biopsies contained both staining patterns, suggesting involvement of different cell types, possibly from the tumor and stromal cell compartments. Ongoing studies aim at further characterizing the expression of FGFR4 in human gliomas with western blot analysis and real-time quantitative PCR, and will be presented at the conference.