Expression of β-transducin repeat-containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase in human glioma and its correlation with prognosis.

β-transducin repeat-containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (β-TrCP) targets a number of substrates essential for specific aspects of tumorigenesis. In addition, β-TrCP regulates various important signaling pathways. As β-TrCP is involved in regulating the ubiquitination and degradation of multiple oncogenes and tumor suppressors, the function of β-TrCP varies between cancer types. At present, the association between β-TrCP expression and clinicopathological factors in glioma is unknown. Therefore, the current study used western blotting and immunohistochemistry to investigate the expression of β-TrCP protein in glioma tissue specimens. It was identified that β-TrCP protein expression levels were significantly lower in glioma compared with non-tumorous human brain tissues. Furthermore, the higher the grade of glioma, the lower the level of β-TrCP expression. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with low β-TrCP expression experienced significantly worse overall survival compared with patients with high β-TrCP expression. The results indicate that downregulation of β-TrCP may be associated with poor survival in patients with glioma. Together, the current data indicates that β-TrCP may be applied as a useful indicator of glioma prognosis and may serve as an anticancer therapeutic target for glioma, however further investigation is required.