Prognostic significance of high-level PIM1 and is related to tumor microenvironment in Low-grade Glioma

Abstract

PIM1 has been shown to be associated with the development of multiple human cancers, but the biological mechanisms of PIM1 in glioma development, particularly the role of TME immune cell infiltration, remain unclear. We analyzed clinical information and gene expression data of all glioma samples and evaluated the relationship with overall survival by univariate and multivariate Cox regression. We also analyzed genes and downstream signaling pathways associated with PIM1 by gene set enrichment analysis. And we analyzed characterized oncogenic pathways, biological pathways, and TME immune cell infiltration in glioma samples with different PIM1 expressions, and validated it by in vitro experiments. The results of Cox regression analysis confirmed that overexpression of PIM1 was significantly associated with malignant progression and poorer survival of gliomas. Using PIM1 and other clinical features, we successfully constructed a nomogram to predict the prognosis of glioma, and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis revealed the association between PIM1 overexpression with cell cycle, cAMP signaling pathway, et al. Meanwhile, overexpression of PIM1 was significantly associated with increased expression of many immune checkpoints and immune cell infiltration. In conclusion, our study confirmed that overexpression of PIM1 is a potential molecular marker of poor prognosis in glioma and that PIM1 plays an important role in TME immune cell infiltration. By identifying PIM1-regulated signaling pathways and immune checkpoints enhances our understanding of the TME immune cell infiltration characteristics of glioma and contributes to the development of immunotherapeutic strategies.