Expression and significance of heme oxygenase I in gliomas

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression and biological value of heme oxygenase I (HO-1) in gliomas. Methods Fifty-six patients with gliomas, admitted to and accepted surgery in our hospital from January 2010 to January 2015, were chosen in our study; WHO grade I was noted in 4 patients, grade II in 16, grade III in 10, and grade IV in 26 patients; patients with grade I and II were as low-grade glioma group and patients with grade III and IV were as high-grade glioma group. The HO-1 expression in the two groups was detected by immunohistochemistry. R-langrage survival tool was used to analyze the relation between HO-1 expression and prognosis of 1107 patients with gliomas selected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Results Significant differences of HO-1 expression were observed in different grades of gliomas (P<0.05), and HO-1 high-expression rate in the high-grade gliomas (75%) was significantly higher than that in the low-grade group (30%, P<0.05). HO-1 protein expression level in the high-grade gliomas was significantly higher than that in the low-grade group (P<0.05). Moreover, area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve was suggested that the HO-1 could be an ideal determine factor (AUC=0.747, P=0.002). Log rank analysis indicated that the accumulate survival rate in patients with low HO-1 expression was significantly higher than that in patients with high HO-1 expression (P<0.05). TCGA database analysis showed that simultaneous survival rate in patients with low HO-1 expression was significantly higher than that in patients with high HO-1 expression (P<0.05). Conclusion Expression of HO-1 is correlated with the malignant degrees and prognoses of gliomas, and it has potential to be a novel biological marker for the diagnosis and treatment of gliomas; furthermore, HO-1 could also be a target for the study and treatment of gliomas. Key words: HO-1; Glioma; Malignant degree; Prognosis