The Prognostic Significance of Spliceosomal Proteins for Patients with Glioblastoma

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is considered one of the most aggressive human cancers. Earlier, our group have demonstrated that alternative RNA splicing plays an important role in the regulation of the GBM phenotype. To continue this study, we analyzed the type of RNA splicing and the expression levels of the spliceosomal genes in a large number of tumor tissue samples and patient-derived GBM sphere lines. We demonstrated that the expression level of splicing factors allows dividing GBM patients into groups with different survival prognosis and also reflects the phenotype of the tumor. In addition, we identified the alternative splicing events that may regulate the GBM phenotype. Finally, we for the first time compared the expression profiles of the spliceosomal genes in different regions of the same tumor and identified splicing factors whose expression most significantly correlates with GBM patients’ survival. Aforementioned data emphasize the important role of pre-mRNA splicing in GBM progression.