O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase gene (MGMT) expression in human glioblastomas in relation to patient characteristics and p53 accumulation

✍ Scribed by Christine Rolhion; Frédérique Penault-Llorca; Jean-Louis Kemeny; Fabrice Kwiatkowski; Jean-Jacques Lemaire; Philippe Chollet; Françoise Finat-Duclos; Pierre Verrelle

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 169 KB
• Volume: 84
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0215(19990820)84:4<416::aid-ijc15>3.0.co;2-a

✦ Synopsis

Repair of cytotoxic DNA damage by O 6 -methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) is a potentially important factor of chemoresistance to chloroethylnitrosoureas (CE-NUs), commonly used in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The value of p53 as a prognostic factor in GBMs remains unclear, but a possible relationship between MGMT gene expression and p53 has been suggested. To further examine these GBM characteristics in vivo, we assessed MGMT gene expression using semi-quantitative RT-PCR and p53 alteration by immuno-histochemistry on a series of 39 GBMs. MGMT gene expression was inversely correlated with age (p F 0.03), consistent with the results of others. Interestingly, tumors from male patients had higher MGMT mRNA amounts than tumors from female patients (p F 0.03). No prognostic implication was observed either for MGMT gene expression or for p53 accumulation. However, MGMT gene expression was significantly lower in p53-altered GBM, regardless of the percentage of positive cells (p F 0.01). Our observation suggests that in human glial tumors, a low level of MGMT gene expression might promote p53 alteration, probably via mutation of its gene.