Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive primary brain malignancies with high incidence and mortality. The aberrant activation of STAT signaling was confirmed to result in tumor pathogenesis and progress by regulating cell cycle, cell survival, and immune response.
Methods: The clinical significance of and regulation network of STAT family in GBM were explored with several web applications or database.
Results: The level of STAT1/3/5A/5B/6 were increased in GBM while STAT4 level was decreased. GBM patients with high expression of STAT1/2/3/5A/6 and low expression of STAT4/5B had a worse overall survival. Among the STAT family, STAT 4 and STAT6 were the top two frequently mutated genes. Correlation suggested a low to moderate correlation among STAT family. STAT family were also involved in the activation or inhibition of the famous cancer related pathways. Immune infiltrates analysis suggested that STAT5A level showed significantly correlated with the abundance of immune cells and the level of immune gene biomarkers. GO functions and KEGG pathways analysis revealed that STAT5A was involved in immune response-regulating signaling pathway, neutrophil and lymphocyte mediated immunity, single-stranded DNA binding, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, NF-kappa B signaling pathway, and TNF signaling pathway. Moreover, we also identified several Kinase and transcription factor targets of STAT5A in GBM.
Conclusions: Our results revealed the therapeutic targets, prognostic biomarkers and regulation network of STAT family in GBM, laying the foundation for further studies about STAT family in therapy and prognosis of GBM.