Author(s)

Elvira Lekka^1*, Nicolas Tsesmetzis², Katherine M. Ashton³, Peter Abel⁴, Charles Davies¹, Gregory Hall¹, Timothy Dawson³, Robert W. Lea⁴

¹Department of Neurosurgery, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Preston Hospital, Preston, UK.
²Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
³Department of Pathology, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Preston Hospital, Preston, UK.
⁴School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.

Molecular biomarkers are commonly used for the management of several types of malignant tumours in routine clinical practice. However, this is not the case for malignant gliomas. Cytokines and Angiogenesis factors are potential candidates due to their intrinsic role in tumourigenesis. Pre- and post-operative serum from 36 malignant glioma patients and 36 controls was analysed using the Bio-Plex Pro Angiogenesis and Cytokines Assay (Bio-Rad, USA). Amongst the molecules tested, the serum concentration of follistatin was significantly higher in patients than in controls. Moreover, the serum concentration of follistatin of the patients postoperatively was significantly reduced compared to that preoperatively. Factors such as age and gender did not affect the concentrations of follistatin measured in the serum of patients pre- and post-operatively as well as healthy controls. This is the first report of follistatin as potential biomarker for the detection of malignant gliomas.

Serum, Malignant Gliomas, Follistatin, Biomarker, Cancer

Lekka, E. , Tsesmetzis, N. , Ashton, K. , Abel, P. , Davies, C. , Hall, G. , Dawson, T. and Lea, R. (2015) Follistatin, a Novel Biomarker for Malignant Gliomas. Neuroscience and Medicine, 6, 121-129. doi: 10.4236/nm.2015.63020.