Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1alpha) is the major transcriptional factor involved in the adaptive response to hypoxia. The aim of this study was to assess HIF-1alpha in 22 patients with transitional meningioma (TM) and 26 patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). HIF-1alpha was assessed using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-based HIF-1 transcription factor assay. Levels of HIF-1alpha in TM and GBM were measured using optical density at 450nm, and median values were found to be 0.35 for TM and 0.37 OD for GBM, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the two types of tumor (p=0.264). These findings indicate that HIF-1alpha is elevated in both TM and GBM, suggesting that although hypoxia is one of the most important and powerful stimuli for HIF-1alpha elevation and consequently angiogenesis, other mechanisms may play roles in HIF-1alpha stimulation in benign brain tumors such as TM.
