Fig. 1

DUSP6 mRNA is over-expressed in human glioblastomas. a Schematic grey boxes denote protein coding region of DUSP6 gene and colored arrows represent the approximate locations of the primers’ annealing sites in DUSP6 gene. b Bar diagram shows relative quantification of total DUSP6 mRNA across a panel of human glioblastoma samples (grade IV astrocytoma). Normal Human Astrocytes (NHA) and Neural Stem Cells (NSC) were used as controls because of the presumed similarity between astrocytes and the cell-of-origin from which glioblastoma develops, both adult (NHA) and foetal (NSC). Relative expression was normalized to housekeeping gene 18S expression. c Upper panel: relative DUSP6 mRNA expression quantified by qPCR on human glioblastoma cultures U251MG, U87MG and T98G. Lower panel: human breast cell cultures MCF7, MCF10A and MDA231 were assayed as positive controls. d Qualitative PCR for DUSP6 mRNA in primary glioblastomas. Expression of different-size transcripts was detected using primers shown in the upper panel. Schematic denotes black/grey boxes exons and the relative location of the forward and reverse primer annealing sites in DUSP6 mRNA gene. Ethidium stained agarose gel of end-point products from the different amplicons DUSP6 using Normal Human astrocytes (NHA), Neural Stem Cells (NCS) and two samples of primary glioblastoma mRNA. The two alternative transcripts of DUSP6 mRNA are shown (transcript variant 1; NM_001946.4, and transcript variant 2 NM_022652.4)