Description
Glioblastoma multiforme constitutes the most aggressive grade IV brain tumor mainly affecting adults with a median age of diagnosis being 68-70 years. Glioblastomas (GBM) typically yield dismal prognosis despite multimodal standard-of-care interventions, including surgical resection, radiotherapy, and temozolomide chemotherapy. There is still much to learn and discover about the molecular function of GBM. The multifaceted nature of GBM, encompassing enigmatic mechanisms of growth, invasion, and therapeutic resistance, has redirected investigative efforts toward long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). These under-researched non-protein-coding transcripts orchestrate gene expression, chromatin remodeling, and cardinal cancer hallmarks such as proliferation, metabolic adaptation, and invasiveness. More lncRNAs have been linked to and studied in LGG as opposed to GBM, leaving much to be discovered on the role of noncoding RNA’s on glioblastomas. Although select lncRNAs have been implicated in GBM pathobiology, the preponderance remains largely uncharacterized.
In a recent study using the GSE108474 database to perform GSEA and machine learning analysis, LINC00836 ( a long non-coding RNA), was identified as a part of the 33-gene signature of GBM. Furthermore, the study identified LINC00836 as profoundly under expressed in GBM relative to lower-grade gliomas, thereby intimating a contributory role in malignant progression. This suggests that changes in LINC00836 expression may have a meaningful impact on GBM signaling cascades; perturbations in LINC00836 may exert substantive influence on tumor dynamics. The current study interrogates associations between LINC00836 expression levels and GBM transcriptional subtypes, patient survival, and clinicopathological covariates to appraise its candidacy as an innovative biomarker of disease biology.