Prognostic Significance of mRNA Expression RBBP8 or its Methylation in Gliomas

Abstract Retinoblastoma-binding protein 8 (RBBP8) affects the prognosis of patients with malignancies through various mechanisms. However, its function in gliomas is unknown. Our study explored the effects of RBBP8 on the prognosis of glioma patients, as well as its regulatory role in the glioma immune microenvironment. We used various bioinformatics methods to analyze the transcriptional profiles and methylation data of RBBP8 in gliomas from multiple databases. Our results showed that the mRNA and protein expression of RBBP8 in gliomas was higher than that in normal tissues and positively correlated with malignant clinical features such as age and WHO grade. A Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that patients with high RBBP8 expression had a poor prognosis. Cox regression demonstrated that RBBP8 was an independent risk indicator and had good diagnostic value for the poor prognosis of glioma. A meta-analysis confirmed the carcinogenic effect of RBBP8 on glioma, while the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource analysis showed that RBBP8 was positively correlated with the infiltration of six immune cell types in low-grade glioma, but only with dendritic cells in glioblastoma multiforme. Importantly, RBBP8 was positively correlated with many well-known immune checkpoints (e.g., CTLA4 and PDL-1). Finally, a gene set enrichment analysis revealed that RBBP8 can promote the activation of cancer-related pathways such as cell cycle, DNA replication and so on. In conclusion, this study is the first to elaborate on the value of RBBP8 in the pathological process of glioma for anti-tumor immunotherapy. In addition, the expression of RBBP8 and its methylation site, cg05513509, may provide potential targets for glioma therapy.