AUTHOR=Wang Gang , Du Wei , Che Lingyi , Gao Xianzheng , Zhao Ruihua , Duan Juan , Gu Zhuoyu , Ma Qian 

TITLE=High Expression of PLAGL2 is Associated With Poor Prognosis in High-Grade Glioma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.787746

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2021.787746

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Pleomorphic adenoma gene like-2 (PLAGL2) has been implicated in the development and progression of diverse malignancies, including glioblastoma. An increasing number of studies have reported that dysregulated expression of PLAGL2 is a common phenomenon in different malignancies. However, the mechanism and biological functions of PLAGL2 in patients with high-grade glioma remain unclear. In addition, the expression and clinical significance of PLAGL2 in high-grade glioma (HGG) have not yet been reported. Herein, we investigated the expression patterns and prognostic values of PLAGL2 in patients with HGG by using various databases, including TIMER2.0, GENT2, ONCOMINE, GEPIA, HPA, and GEO datasets. In the present study, we analyzed the relationship between PLAGL2 mRNA expression and clinical parameters in 184 HGG cases and found that PLAGL2 presented positively high expression and was relevant to poor prognosis. Immunohistochemistry analysis confirmed the overexpression of PLAGL2 protein, which is mainly expressed in the nuclear of glioma. Additionally, a high level of expression of the PLAGL2 gene was associated with lower survival in PFS and OS in GBM patients. Correlation analysis between PLAGL2 and immune infiltration related to the abundance of B cell, CD8+ T cell, CD4+ T cell, macrophage, dendritic cell, and neutrophil was also performed using TIMER2.0. GSEA results showed that high PLAGL2 expression was associated with cell migration, proliferation, actin cytoskeletal, and angiogenesis. To sum up, our findings indicated that PLAGL2 could serve as an independent prognostic biomarker and might be a potential therapeutic target for HGG, which should be further investigated.