Clinical significance of determination of ornithine decarboxylase and polyamine in human gliomas

Objective: To explore the significance of determination of ornithine decarboxylase(ODC) messenger RNA and content of polyamine in human glioma.Methods: RT-PCR was used to examine ODC mRNA expression in human glioma and high performance liquid chromatograph(HPLC) was used to determine the content of polyamine in tumor compared with control group.Results: The expression level of ODC mRNA was increased in gliomas than nomal nervous tissues and the content of spermine and spermidine in tumor tissues was higher than in normal tissues(P<0.01),but there was no difference of the content of putrescine between glioma and normal tissues (P>0.05).Conclusions: It was evidence that the high ODC activation and high content of spermine were closely correlated with the growth of glioma.ODC may represent a tumor marker and may play an important role in diagnosis and prognosis of glioma.It may be a important method for biological immunotherapy.