Survival kinase genes present prognostic significance in glioblastoma

Abstract

Cancer biomarkers with a strong predictive power for diagnosis/prognosis and a potential to be therapeutic targets have not yet been fully established. Here we employed a loss-of-function screen in glioblastoma (GBM), an infiltrative brain tumor with a dismal prognosis, and identified 20 survival kinase genes (SKGs). Survival analyses using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets revealed that the expression of CDCP1, CDKL5, CSNK1E, IRAK3, LATS2, PRKAA1, STK3, TBRG4, and ULK4 stratified GBM prognosis with or without temozolomide (TMZ) treatment as a covariate. For the first time, we found that GBM patients with a high level of NEK9 and PIK3CB had a greater chance of having recurrent tumors. The expression of CDCP1, IGF2R, IRAK3, LATS2, PIK3CB, ULK4, or VRK1 in primary GBM tumors was associated with recurrence-related prognosis. Notably, the level of PIK3CB in recurrent tumors was much higher than that in newly diagnosed ones. Congruent with these results, genes in the PI3K/AKT pathway showed a significantly strong correlation with recurrence rate, further highlighting the pivotal role of PIK3CB in the disease progression. Importantly, 17 SKGs together presented a novel GBM prognostic signature. SKGs identified herein are associated with recurrence rate and present prognostic significance in GBM, thereby becoming attractive therapeutic targets.