Identified RP2 as a prognostic biomarker for glioma, facilitating glioma pathogenesis mainly via regulating tumor immunity

Abstract

Glioma is the most common primary intracranial tumor in the central nervous system, with a high degree of malignancy and poor prognosis, easy to recur, difficult to cure. The mutation of Retinitis Pigmentosa 2 (RP2) can cause retinitis pigmentosa, it is a prognostic factor of osteosarcoma, however, its role in glioma remains unclear. Based on the data from TCGA and GTEx, we identified RP2 as the most related gene for glioma by WGCNA, and used a series of bioinformatics analyses including LinkedOmics, GSCA, CTD, and so on, to explore the expression of RP2 in glioma and the biological functions it is involved in. The results showed that RP2 was highly expressed in glioma, and its overexpression could lead to poor prognosis. In addition, the results of enrichment analysis showed that RP2 was highly correlated with cell proliferation and immune response. And then, we found significant enrichment of Macrophages among immune cells. Furthermore, our experiments have confirmed that Macrophages can promote the development of glioma by secreting or influencing the secretion of some cytokines. Moreover, we investigated the influence of RP2 on the immunotherapy of glioma and the role of m6A modification in the influence of RP2 on glioma. Ultimately, we determined that RP2 is an independent prognostic factor that is mainly closely related to immune for glioma.