AUTHOR=Wang Jing , Xia Shu , Zhao Jing , Gong Chen , Xi Qingsong , Sun Wei 

TITLE=Prognostic Potential of Secreted Modular Calcium-Binding Protein 1 in Low-Grade Glioma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2021.666623

DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2021.666623

ISSN=2296-889X

ABSTRACT=Background: SMOC1 belongs to a family of matricellular proteins, it was involved in 
embryo development, endothelia cell proliferation, angiogenesis, integrin-matrix interactions, cell 
adhesion, and regulation of glucose metabolism. Previous studies showed that the expression of 
SMOC1 was increased in some tumors. However, the prognostic value and the biological function 
of SMOC1 in tumor remains unclear. 
Methods: In this study, we explored the expression profile and prognostic value of SMOC1 in 
pan-cancers, especially glioma via multiple databases, including Oncomine, GEPIA2, PrognoScan, 
Kaplan-Meier plotter and CGGA database. Furthermore, LinkedOmics was used to identify the 
genes co-expressed with SMOC1, and to perform Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes 
(KEGG) pathways and Gene ontology (GO) analysis in low grade glioma (LGG). And CancerSEA 
database was used to evaluate the correlation between SMOC1 expression and functional state 
activities in glioma cells. In addition, TIMER and TISIDB database were used to evaluate the 
correlations between SMOC1 expression and tumor infiltrated immune cells in tumor 
microenvironment. 
Results: Compared with normal brain tissues, the expression of SMOC1 was increased in LGG 
tissues. The higher expression of SMOC1 was significantly correlated with better survival of LGG 
patients. Additionally, functional analyses showed that the SMOC1 co-expressed genes were 
inhibited in processes like response to type I interferon and interferon-gamma, lymphocyte 
mediated immunity, leukocyte migration, adaptive immune response, neutrophil mediated 
immunity, T cell activation and pathways including EMC-receptor interaction, Th17 cell 
differentiation, leukocyte trans-endothelial migration in LGG. Moreover, the expression of 
SMOC1 was correlated with stemness, hypoxia, EMT and metastasis of glioma cells. Additionally, 
the expression of SMOC1 expression was negatively correlated with levels of infiltrating B cells, 
CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells and gene markers of 
most immune cells in LGG. 
Conclusions: Our results suggest that SMOC1 could be a potential biomarker to determine 
prognosis and might play a specific role in the tumor microenvironment of glioma, thereby 
influencing the development and progression of glioma. This findings provide some new insights 
for further investigation.