This study was designed to investigate the expression of the intracellular and extracellular domains of EGFR and of the activated receptor as well as its ligands EGF and TGFα in a large series of meningiomas with long follow-up data, and investigate if there exists an association between antibody expression and clinical and histological data.
To examine which growth factors correlate with neovascularization in human brain tumors, the mRNA levels of transforming growth factor alpha, transforming growth factor beta, basic fibroblast growth factor, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) genes were determined by a Northern blot analysis in surgically obtained human gliomas and meningiomas.
The ligands of this receptor, epidermal growth factor and transforming growth factor alpha, lacked quantitative changes at their loci in gliomas and meningiomas.