PHD Finger Protein 20 (PHF20)

By screening a glioblastoma expression library with autologous patient serum, Fischer et al. (2001) cloned PHF20, which they called GLEA2. The deduced 540-amino acid protein has a lysine-rich N-terminal region and a putative zinc finger motif. Northern blot analysis detected a 7.0-kb GLEA2 transcript in all tissues examined and in nearly all glioblastomas and anaplastic astrocytomas tested. Fischer et al. (2001) found that sera from 17 of 39 glioblastoma patients reacted with GLEA2 protein, but there was no obvious correlation between immune response and histopathologic or clinical grade. Pallasch et al. (2005) analyzed 62 glioblastoma patients and found that median survival for patients positive for GLEA2 autoantibodies increased to 17.4 months, as compared with 7.2 months for patients without GLEA2 autoantibodies.