Assessment of tumor cell invasion factors in gliomatosis cerebri.

Gliomatosis cerebri (GC) is a rare brain tumor characterized by widespread infiltration of large parts of the brain and sometimes even the spinal cord. To determine the cause of this extraordinary degree of brain invasion, we studied immunoexpression of factors associated with brain infiltration in low-grade and high-grade tumor samples from nine GC cases. We further determined the allelic status of the fibroblastic growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) gene at position 388 (arginine [Arg(388)] or glycine [Gly(388)]) in eighteen GC patients, because the presence of at least one Arg(388) allele has been suggested to favor tumor cell motility compared to tumor cells homozygeous for the Gly(388) allele. Immunohistochemical analyses showed that tumor samples from three GC cases expressed Tenascin-C, whereas six cases had CD44 - immunopositive tumor samples. Expression of MMP-9 was not observed in any of the nine GC patients. FGFR4 genotyping revealed the presence of the Arg(388) in 72% of the eighteen GC cases, a frequency similar to the one found in 21 common astrocytomas (71%). In tumor-free control DNA, the Arg(388) phenotype was present in 60%. These data indicate that CD44 expression might be related to the tumor infiltration in GC, and that patients suffering from GC or other common astrocytomas do not have a significantly increased frequency of the tumor cell motility-favoring Arg(388) FGFR4 allele.