Blood alterations preceding clinical manifestation of glioblastoma.

Abstract

2024 Background: Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive primary brain tumour in adults. There is lack of knowledge on biochemical blood alterations prior to clinical diagnosis of glioblastoma. We had the rare opportunity to investigate selected blood markers from plasma samples taken 12, 42 and 72 months before tumor manifestation in a glioblastoma patient. This index patient was enrolled in the longitudinal population based Vienna Transdanube Aging Study (VITA), which prospectively collects blood plasma from 600 participants at baseline (age 75), 30 and 60 months thereafter. Methods: We determined plasma levels of S100B, neuropeptide Y (NPY), secretagogin (SCGN), microRNA-21, microRNA-let7, microRNA-128, and microRNA-342-3p in all three blood samples from our index patient and in consecutive blood samples from five male and five female controls from the VITA cohort. These proteins and microRNAs were previously shown to be relevant for the pathobiology of glioblastomas. None of the controls had a malignant or neurological disease. Protein markers were analysed using commercially available ELISAs and microRNAs were quantified using RT-qPCR. Results: Compared to baseline values, we found a significant increase of microRNA-21 (up to 4-fold) and microRNA-let7 (up to 7-fold) levels in the blood samples of our index patient, whereas control samples showed almost stable levels of these markers. There was no significant difference in S100B, NPY, SCGN, microRNA-128, and microRNA-342-3p plasma levels between the index patient and controls. Conclusions: Increases of microRNA-21 and microRNA-let7 plasma levels may be associated with pre-clinical development of glioblastoma.