Expression and clinical significance of CXC chemokines in the glioblastoma microenvironment.

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common subtype of brain cancer, encompassing 16% of all primary brain cancers. The prognosis of GBM is poor, with a 5-year-survial of approximately 5%. Increasing evidence has revealed that chemokines in the tumor microenvironment (TME) are often altered, thus affecting tumor proliferation and metastasis.

Method: Multi-omics and bioinformatics tools were utilized to clarify the role of CXC chemokine in GBM.

Result: Most CXC chemokines were found to be differentially regulated in GBM, which correlated with patient prognosis. CXC chemokines were found to activate cancer-related signaling pathways, thus affecting immune infiltration. Interestingly, this was found to be associated with drug resistance. Most CXC chemokines were significantly correlated with abundance of B cells, CD8+ cells and dendritic cells. Furthermore, somatic copy number alterations of CXC chemokines can inhibit dendritic cell infiltration. Moreover, CXCL1 was selected as a hub gene, and several kinase, miRNA and transcription factor targets of CXCL1 were identified.

Conclusion: our study provides novel insights into CXC chemokine expression and their role in the GBM microenvironment. These results are able to provide more data about prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets of GBM.