Low expression or hypermethylation of PLK2 might predict favorable prognosis for patients with glioblastoma multiforme.

Background: As the most aggressive brain tumor, patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) have a poor prognosis. Our purpose was to explore prognostic value of Polo-like kinase 2 (PLK2) in GBM, a member of the PLKs family.

Methods: The expression profile of PLK2 in GBM was obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. The PLK2 expression in GBM was tested. Kaplan-Meier curves were generated to assess the association between PLK2 expression and overall survival (OS) in patients with GBM. Furthermore, to assess its prognostic significance in patients with primary GBM, we constructed univariate and multivariate Cox regression models. The association between PLK2 expression and its methylation was then performed. Differentially expressed genes correlated with PLK2 were identified by Pearson test and functional enrichment analysis was performed.

Results: Overall survival results showed that low PLK2 expression had a favorable prognosis of patients with GBM (-value = 0.0022). Furthermore, PLK2 (HR = 0.449, 95% CI [0.243-0.830], -value = 0.011) was positively associated with OS by multivariate Cox regression analysis. In cluster 5, DNA methylated PLK2 had the lowest expression, which implied that PLK2 expression might be affected by its DNA methylation status in GBM. PLK2 in CpG island methylation phenotype (G-CIMP) had lower expression than non G-CIMP group ( = 0.0077). Regression analysis showed that PLK2 expression was negatively correlated with its DNA methylation ( = 0.0062, Pearson = -0.3855). Among all differentially expressed genes of GBM, CYGB ( = 0.5551; < 0.0001), ISLR2 ( = 0.5126; < 0.0001), RPP25 ( = 0.5333; < 0.0001) and SOX2 ( = -0.4838; < 0.0001) were strongly correlated with PLK2. Functional enrichment analysis results showed that these genes were enriched several biological processes or pathways that were associated with GBM.

Conclusion: Polo-like kinase 2 expression is regulated by DNA methylation in GBM, and its low expression or hypermethylation could be considered to predict a favorable prognosis for patients with GBM.