Identification of IFN-β Associated Genes Signature Predicting Overall Survival for Glioblastoma

Abstract Background: Brain glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant tumor of intracranial tumors. The prognosis of this disease is extremely poor. While the introduction of IFN-β regimen in the treatment of gliomas has significantly improved the outcome of patients, the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. Materials and methods: mRNA expression profiles and clinicopathological data were downloaded from TCGA-GBM and GSE83300 data set from the GEO. Univariate Cox regression analysis and lasso Cox regression model established a novel four‐gene IFN-β signature (including PRDX1, SEC61B, XRCC5, and BCL2L2) for GBM prognosis prediction. Further, GBM samples (n=50) and normal brain tissues (n=50) were then used for real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) experiments. Gene Set Enrichment Analyses (GSEA) was performed to further understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. Pearson correlation was applied to calculate the correlation between the lncRNAs and IFN-β associated genes. A lncRNA with a correlation coefficient |R2| > 0.3 and P < 0.05 was considered to be an IFN-β associated lncRNA.Results: Patients in the high‐risk group shown significantly poorer survival than patients in the low‐risk group. The signature was found to be an independent prognostic factor for GBM survival. Furthermore, GSEA revealed several significantly enriched pathways, which might help explain the underlying mechanisms. Our study identified a novel robust four‐gene IFN-β signature for GBM prognosis prediction. The signature might contain potential biomarkers for metabolic therapy and treatment response prediction in GBM.Conclusions: Our study established a novel IFN-β associated genes signature to predict overall survival of GBM, which may help in clinical decision making for individual treatment.