Identification of key genes for glioblastoma microenvironment

Abstract

Glioblastoma(GBM), as a common kind of brain cancer, has a poor prognosis and a recurrence rate of nearly 100 percent. Tumor immune microenvironment is a crucial factor for glioblastoma progression. Some prognostically relevant genes in the immunologic microenvironment of glioblastoma remain to be further explored. This article aims to ascertain genes involved in the immune microenvironment of glioblastoma, and this topic has not been identified before. R version 4.2.1 and the appropriate packages were used for all analyses in this paper. Relevant transcriptomic data for GBMs as well as clinical data were extracted from immune score data in the TCGA database, and stromal score data were acquired from this URL (http://www.cbioportal.org/). Differentially expressed genes were obtained from immune score data and Stromal score data. After intersections of all these genes, the PPI interaction network was applied. According to functional analysis, these genes are intensively distributed in immune-related pathways. Eventually LncRNAs co-expressing with immune-related genes were positively identified. We characterized genes related to the GBM tumor microenvironment not previously identified in similar studies, as well as some lncRNAs that co-expressed with these immune genes