Background: Glioma is the most common malignant tumor of brain in adult patients. The standardized treatment protocol was based on surgical therapy, supplemented with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, the prognosis was still unsatisfied. The chemoresistance is one of the most important reason for the poor prognosis of glioma patients. It has confirmed that glioma stem cell (GSC) are one of the reasons for chemoresistance.
Methods: In this study three datasets (GSE23806, COSMIC, TCGA) was used to perform the analysis to search for the key genes related to GSC, temozolomide (TMZ) resistance and prognosis. The key gene for further research was selected by reviewing the previous studies. The selected gene was investigated the relation between expression levels and clinical characteristics in both TCGA and CGGA dataset. The bioinformatics analysis was performed by Gene ontology (GO) analysis. The survival analysis was performed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis.
Results: AE binding protein 1 (AEBP1) was selected for further analysis. AEBP1 was overexpressed in GSCs and TMZ resistance cells. In both TCGA and CGGA dataset, the results showed that the expression level of AEBP1 was increased in glioblastoma (GBM) samples, IDH wild-type samples and MGMT promoter unmethylated samples. Meanwhile, AEBP1 expression was positive related with several GSC markers. GO analysis showed that AEBP1 were related with immune response, cell adhesion, apoptotic process, inflammatory response, positive regulation of cell proliferation, angiogenesis, response to drug and response to hypoxia. The survival analysis showed that the overexpressed level of AEBP1 was correlated with short survival time in both glioma and GBM patients.
Conclusion: In summary, AEBP1 was related with GSC induced TMZ resistance. Our study showed that AEBP1 might be an oncogene and a new effective therapeutic target for the treatment of glioma.