Department of Molecular Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA.
Oncol Rep. 2019 Feb;41(2):1359-1366. doi: 10.3892/or.2018.6896. Epub 2018 Nov 28.
The association of MAPT (Tau) with various tauopathies and other neurological disorders has long been established. However, the role of microtubule‑associated protein Tau (MAPT) expression in brain cancer is largely unknown. To determine whether MAPT expression is related to low‑grade glioma (LGG) survival rates, RNASeq data representing samples from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were assessed. Results revealed that high expression of the MAPT gene is very strongly associated with increased overall and disease‑free survival in LGG but not in breast cancer or melanoma. No such association was apparent for either amyloid precursor protein or α‑synuclein gene expression. The expression levels of particular apoptosis‑ and pro‑proliferative‑effector genes were consistent with the Tau‑associated increased survival rates. It has been well established that the Tau protein plays a neurodegenerative role, and in this study we identified, for the first time, a potential cell apoptosis function that Tau may play in cancers of the central nervous system.
MAPT（Tau）与各种tau 病和其他神经退行性疾病的关联早已确立。然而，微管相关蛋白 Tau（MAPT）表达在脑癌中的作用在很大程度上是未知的。为了确定 MAPT 表达是否与低级别神经胶质瘤（LGG）的存活率有关，评估了代表癌症基因组图谱（TCGA）样本的 RNASeq 数据。结果表明，MAPT 基因的高表达与 LGG 的总生存率和无病生存率的增加非常强相关，但与乳腺癌或黑色素瘤无关。淀粉样前体蛋白或α-突触核蛋白基因表达没有出现这种关联。特定凋亡和促增殖效应基因的表达水平与 Tau 相关的存活率增加一致。已经证实 Tau 蛋白在神经退行性疾病中起作用，在这项研究中，我们首次确定了 Tau 在中枢神经系统癌症中可能发挥的潜在细胞凋亡功能。
