GFAP
Overview
GFAP (glial fibrillary acidic protein) is the canonical astrocytic lineage marker widely used in neuropathology to identify astrocytic differentiation in glial tumors. In oligodendroglioma, GFAP marks the differentiated astrocyte-like tumor cell subpopulation, one of two glial lineages identified by single-cell RNA-seq.
Alterations observed in the corpus
- GFAP is highly expressed in the differentiated astrocyte-like tumor cell compartment of grade II oligodendrogliomas, alongside APOE, ALDOC, and SOX9; this astrocyte-like program coexists with an oligodendrocyte-like program (OLIG1, OLIG2, OMG) within the same tumors PMID:27806376.
- GFAP IHC was used to confirm astrocyte-like cell distribution in oligodendroglioma tissue sections as an orthogonal validation of the scRNA-seq lineage assignments PMID:27806376.
- The stem/progenitor compartment (SOX2/SOX4/SOX11-high) that accounts for nearly all proliferating cells is GFAP-low, indicating that differentiation into the astrocytic lineage is associated with loss of the stem cell program PMID:27806376.
Cancer types (linked)
- ODG — GFAP marks the astrocyte-like differentiated subpopulation in grade II IDH-mutant 1p/19q codeleted oligodendroglioma; used as IHC validation of scRNA-seq astrocytic lineage assignments PMID:27806376.
Co-occurrence and mutual exclusivity
Therapeutic relevance
- Not directly targeted in the corpus; GFAP expression defines a non-proliferating, differentiated subpopulation that may be less susceptible to therapies targeting the stem/progenitor compartment PMID:27806376.
Open questions
- Whether the astrocyte-like GFAP+ subpopulation in oligodendroglioma can dedifferentiate and repopulate the tumor following treatment is not addressed PMID:27806376.
Sources
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