After patient stratification for the histologic tumor grade in astrocytic and oligodendroglial tumors, the EMP3 promoter hypermethylation was significantly more frequent in WHO grade II (45 of 63, 71.4%) than in WHO grade III tumors (21 of 47, 44.7%) (P = 0.0001). Here, EMP3 is linked to oligodendroglial tumor.