**2.1. Tissues and extraction of proteins**

A clinically nonfunctional human pituitary adenoma tissue was obtained during surgery. The expression of FSH, LH, GH, prolactin, TSH, and ACTH were all negative in tumor cells [11]. A normal human pituitary tissue acted as control group was obtained from the post-mortem sample (a drowning male) [9, 36]. Human astrocytoma brain tissues (including different clinical staging-I/II/III/IV) were obtained from the Department of Neurosurgery of Xiangya Hospital, China [35]. The tissues were frozen in liquid nitrogen immediately, then stored at −80°C. According to the protein extraction manuals (Pierce, Rockford, IL, USA),supernatant of the tissue lysate was extracted for further analysis.
