Immunohistochemical expression of intermediate filaments in diagnostics of diffuse gliomas

Intermediate filament proteins play an important role in maintaining a stable shape, as well as the possible movement of cells, including neoplastic cells. However there, are few works dedicated to the investigation of these proteins expression in diffuse gliomas and they are quite contradictory. The authors studied the expression of intermediate filaments (glial fibrillar acid protein GFAP, vimentin) in diffuse gliomas of the brain. 52 postoperative samples with the diagnosis of astrocytic and oligodendroglial brain tumors were examined. Primary antibodies against GFAP, vimentin, Ki-67 were used. The proliferative index and the expression area were calculated using the tools ImageJ 1.47v. The statistical Fisher test was included. Most samples with moderate expression of GFAP (62.5%) are rated to oligodendroglial tumors. Part of oligodendroglial tumors (58.3%) showed no expression of vimentin by tumor cells, this was not observed in astrocytomas. Meanwhile, a high level of expression of intermediate filament proteins - GFAP (100%) and vimentin (87%) is characteristic for diffuse gliomas. The expression level of GFAP and vimentin is higher in astrocytic tumors than in oligodendroglial (p<0.05). Levels of GFAP and vimentin expression are differential feature of astrocytic and oligodendroglial tumors.