Antioxidant enzymes in oligodendroglial brain tumors: association with proliferation, apoptotic activity and survival

Purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between antioxidant enzyme expression and clinicopathological features in oligodendroglial tumors. The expression of antioxidant enzymes and related proteins (AOEs), manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), thioredoxin (Trx), thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) and gammaglutamylcysteine synthetase catalytic and regulatory subunits (GLCL-C and GLCL-R), was studied in 85 oligodendroglial tumors. The material included 71 primary (43 grade II and 28 grade III) and 14 recurrent (6 grade II and 8 grade III) tumors. Fifty-seven cases were pure oligodendrogliomas and 28 were mixed oligoastrocytomas. Immunoreactivity for MnSOD was found in 89%, Trx in 29%, TrxR in 76%, GLCL-C in 70% and GLCL-R in 68% of cases. Increased Trx expression was associated with higher tumor grade, cell proliferation and apoptosis (P=0.006, P=0.001 and P=0.003, Mann-Whitney test). Pure oligodendrogliomas showed more intense staining than oligoastrocytomas, especially for MnSOD (P=0.002, Mann-Whitney test). In the total series Trx was associated with poor prognosis in univariate survival analysis (P=0.0343, log-rank test) and furthermore in Cox multivariate analysis (P=0.009) along with age (P=0.002). The results suggest that the expression of Trx has a correlation to patient outcome and that there may be some association between AOEs, like MnSOD and Trx, and clinicopathological features of oligodendrogliomas.