Only two percent of Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients respond to standard care and survive beyond 36 months (long-term survivors, LTS) while the majority survives less than 12 months (short-term survivors, STS). To understand the mechanism leading to poor survival, we analyzed publicly available datasets of 113 STS and 58 LTS. This analysis revealed 198 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that co-occur with aggressive tumor growth and may be responsible for the poor prognosis. These genes belong largely to the GO-categories “epithelial to mesenchymal transition” and “response to hypoxia”. In this paper we applied upstream analysis approach which involves state-of-art promoter analysis and network analysis of the dysregulated genes potentially responsible for short survival in GBM. Transcription factors associated with GBM pathology like NANOG, NF-κB, REST, FRA-1, PPARG and seven others were found enriched in regulatory regions of the dysregulated genes. Based on network analysis, we propose novel gene regulatory network regulated by five master regulators – IGFBP2, VEGFA, VEGF165, PDGFA, AEBP1 and OSMR which can potentially act as therapeutic targets for enhancing GBM prognosis. Critical analysis of this gene regulatory network gives insights on mechanism of gene regulation by IGFBP2 via several transcription factors including the key molecule of GBM tumor invasiveness and progression FRA-1. All the observations are validated in independent cohorts and their impact on overall is studied on TCGA-GBM RNA seq data.
Gene regulatory network analysis with drug sensitivity reveals synergistic effects of combinatory chemotherapy in gastric cancer
