Exploring potential therapeutic targets for glioma based on non-targeted metabolic analysis

Abstract

Abstract Background Glioma, easy recurrence and poor prognosis, is the most common cancer in brain. The metabolic reprogramming of glioma provides favorable conditions for the growth of tumor cells. However, the pivotal metabolic pathways and related therapeutic targets associated with glioma progression remain to be illuminated yet. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the changes in glioma metabolism, and reveal the potential biological functions of related metabolic genes. Methods We collected 4 postoperative glioma and adjacent tissues, then performed non-targeted metabolic analysis. The hub metabolic pathways were identified using KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. In addition, the mRNA and protein expression of related metabolic genes were demonstrated based on UALCAN and HPA data. To gain insight into the prognosis efficacy of these genes, the Kaplan-Meier, Cox regression and time-dependent ROC analyses were conducted. We further revealed the correlation between expression of metabolic genes and immune infiltration using ssGSEA and correlation analysis. Results We found that 13 metabolites were up-regulated and 107 metabolites were down-regulated in glioma. The Glycerophospholipid metabolism pathway was considerd the hub metabolic pathway in tumorigenesis of glioma. Furthermore, the expression of CTSC, LPCAT1, LPCAT3, MGAT1 and MGAT2 were significantly up-regulated in glioma, and were correlated with poor prognosis. Finally, based on immune analysis, we discovered that infiltration of most immune cells, importantly MDSCs, were correlated with the expression of CTSC, LPCAT3, MGAT1 and MGAT2. Conclusion In this study, our findings revealed the metabolic landscape of glioma microenvironment, which provides a promising therapeutic strategy.