Aim: Low grade glioma (LGG) is a lethal brain cancer with relatively poor prognosis in young adults. Thus, this study was performed to develop novel molecular biomarkers to effectively predict the prognosis of LGG patients and finally guide treatment decisions.
Methods: survival-related genes were determined by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis using the expression and clinical data of 506 LGG patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and independently validated in a Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) dataset. A prognostic risk score was established based on a linear combination of 10 gene expression levels using the regression coefficients of the multivariate Cox regression models. GSEA was performed to analyze the altered signaling pathways between the high and low risk groups stratified by median risk score.
Results: We identified a total of 1489 genes significantly correlated with patients' prognosis in LGG. The top 5 protective genes were DISP2, CKMT1B, AQP7, GPR162 and CHGB, the top 5 risk genes were SP1, EYA3, ZSCAN20, ITPRIPL1 and ZNF217 in LGG. The risk score was predictive of poor overall survival and relapse-free survival in LGG patients. Pathways of small cell lung cancer, pathways in cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia, colorectal cancer were the top 4 most enriched pathways in the high risk group. SP1, EYA3, ZSCAN20, ITPRIPL1, ZNF217 and GPR162 were significantly up-regulated, while DISP2, CKMT1B, AQP7 were down-regulated in 523 LGG tissues as compared to 1141 normal brain controls.
Conclusions: The 10-gene signature may become novel prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers to considerably improve the prognostic prediction in LGG.
Keywords: 10-gene signature; low grade glioma; overall survival; relapse-free survival; risk score.