Immunohistochemical assessment of autophagic protein LC3B and p62 levels in glioma patients.

Glioma is a serious malignant central nervous system disease. Autophagy is a basic cellular catabolic mechanism maintaining the cellular homeostasis through degradation of unnecessary molecules and components and reusing them. Autophagy also promotes development, progression and anticancer therapy resistance of many types of human cancers. In this study, we detected the expression of two autophagic protein LC3B and p62 in 81 glioma tissues by immunohistochemistry analysis. LC3B and p62 was highly expressed in high-grade glioma tissues, compared with low-grade glioma tissues. High levels of LC3B and p62 protein were also associated with advanced tumor stages, worse relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in glioma patients, but not with patients' age, gender or KPS. Additionally, there was a statistically positive correlation between the expression of LC3B and p62 in glioma tissues. Therefore, we determined LC3B and p62 which contributed to autophagy behavior promoted development and poor prognosis of malignant gliomas. Therapeutic methods based on autophagy or targeting LC3B or p62 may be considered as a potential therapeutic strategy to retard progression of malignant gliomas.