ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the molecular mechanism of retinoic acid in targeted treatment of craniopharyngioma by detecting the expression of RARαand PPARβ/δin craniopharyngioma cells and analyzing the correlation between the expression and effect of retinoic acid. Methods The expression of RARα and PPARβ/δ in craniopharyngioma cells from 31 patients cultured in vitro was quantified by reverse transcription-PCR. The inhibition rates of RA on craniopharyngioma with different expression of RARα and PPARβ/δ were detected by using MTT assay, and the correlation between the expression of RARα and PPARβ/δand the effect of RA was analyzed. Results 1. The RT-PCR results showed that the expression levels of PPARβ/δand RARα mRNA were different. Craniopharyngioma cells from 31 patients in primary culture were divided into three groups according the expression levels of nuclear receptor: PPARβ/δ>RARα group, RARα>PPARβ/δ group and RARα>>PPARβ/δ group. 2.MTT results showed that the inhibition rate of RARα>>PPARβ/δgroup was significantly higher than the other groups under same drug, the differences had statistical significance ( <0.01) . Conclusions The expression of PPARβ/δ, RARα can be used to evaluate the effect of RA in treatment of craniopharyngioma. The craniopharyngioma with low-expression of PPARβ/δ is more sensitive to RA. Targeting higher RARα or targeting lower PPARβ/δ is beneficial to the treatment of craniopharyngiomas.