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Updated: Jul 7, 2026
Three-dimensional Alginate-bead Culture of Human Pituitary Adenoma Cells
Published on: February 18, 2016
Expression of galectin-3 correlates with apoptosis in pituitary adenoma cells
Chui-Xue Huang1, Yong-Hong Hou, Yun-Sheng Liu
1Department of Neurosurgery, Hainan Province People's Hospital, Haikou 570311, China. ledongren@yahoo.com.cn
Objective:
To investigate the expressions of Galectin-3 (Gal-3), Bcl-2 and Bax in human pituitary adenomas, and to explore the interrelation among them.
Methods:
RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry were applied to detect the mRNA and protein expressions of Gal-3, Bcl-2 and Bax in surgically excised human pituitary adenoma tissues, including invasive and non-invasive pituitary adenomas, and the correlation analysis was performed.
Results:
The Gal-3 and Bcl-2 expressions in the invasive pituitary group were significantly higher than those in the non-invasive group, and the expression of Bax had no significant difference between the two groups. Pearsonos correlation analyses showed that the Gal-3 expression was positively correlated with Bcl-2, but was not correlated with Bax, which was inversely correlated with expression of Bcl-2.
Conclusion:
Gal-3 may function through a cell death inhibition pathway involving Bcl-2 to enhance cell proliferation, which result in the invasive growth of pituitary adenoma. These results indicate that Gal-3 has an important role in pituitary tumor cell proliferation and may serves as a possible therapeutic target in treatment of pituitary tumors.
