GAL-9: A predictive biomarker negatively regulating immune response in glioma patients

Abstract Background Glioma was the most frequent primary brain tumor. Immunotherapy is one of the most promising therapeutic approaches for gliomas. TIM-3 can induce the malignancy of gliomas. The function of GAL-9, as one of the ligands of TIM-3, in glioma has still remained elusive. In this study, we attempted to characterize the expression of GAL-9 in glioma patients. Patients and Methods In the present study, 1292 glioma patients from GSE 16011 array set, Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets were enrolled. The Kaplan-Meier analysis was undertaken to explore the prognostic value of GAL-9. GraphPad software and R language were used for statistical analysis. Results Our research indicated that expression of GAL-9 was highly correlated with major clinical and molecular features. Patients with high expression of GAL-9 were more susceptible to have malignant tumors. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis revealed that expression of GAL-9 was closely associated with function of immune response in glioma. Clinically, the results of Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that expression of GAL-9 was negatively associated with OS in all grade glioma and HGGs. High expression of GAL-9 was an independent indicator of poor prognosis. Conclusion Our results highlighted the pivotal role of GAL-9 in regulation of glioma’s immune suppressive features, and indicated that GAL-9 was a promising target for cancer immunotherapy, and may result in developing further therapeutic strategies.