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A panel of four cytokines predicts the prognosis of patients with malignant gliomas

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Abstract

A comprehensive evaluation of cytokine levels in patients with gliomas could provide important information for the progression and host responses of gliomas. We studied a panel of 120 cytokines and growth factors and investigated their prognostic values for glioma. A protein antibody array was first performed to study the prognostic significance of 120 cytokines in the plasma samples of 45 glioblastoma patients prior to craniotomy or biopsy procedure. An independent set of plasma samples from 260 patients with astrocytomas (80 grade II, 80 grade III, 100 grade IV) with complete clinicopathologic data and follow-ups were used for validation. Ten cytokines were identified by significance analysis of microarray, in which four were associated with poor prognosis (IL-15, MCP-1, GDNF, IL-1R4/ST2), and six were associated with good prognosis (IGFBP-6, MIP-1δ, ICAM-3, IL-7, MIP-3β, and sgp130) of the glioblastoma patients. Moreover, a 4-cytokine panel composed of IL-7, IL1R4/ST2, sgp130 and MCP-1 showed significant correlation with overall survival of the glioblastoma patients (HR 2.068; 95 % CI 1.357–3.153; p = 0.001). In the validation set, the cytokine panel was significantly correlated with overall survival in the 260 glioma patients (HR 3.480, 95 % CI 1.890–6.422) in multivariate Cox regression analysis. It also showed strong correlation with survival in patients with malignant gliomas (grade III: HR 2.790, 95 % CI 1.597–3.984, p = 0.002; grade IV: HR 1.753; 95 % CI 1.502–2.255, p < 0.001). This panel of four cytokines: IL-7, IL1R4/ST2, sgp130, and MCP-1 can serve as a prognostic marker for patients with malignant gliomas.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by The National High Technology Research and Development Foundation of China (2012AA02A508 to Tao Jiang), International Science and Technology Cooperation Program (2012DFA30470 to Tao Jiang), and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (81001124 to Yi Lin). We thank Ms. Yuling Yang for helping in collecting and processing the blood samples, Dr. Donghui Li, Dr. Peng Wei and Dr. Jingxuan Yang for their valuable suggestions on various analyses, and Dr. Yvonne Kew for helping in refining the article.

Funding

The National High Technology Research and Development Foundation of China (Tao Jiang, 2012AA02A508), International Science and Technology Cooperation Program (Tao Jiang, 2012DFA30470), and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Yi Lin, 81001124).

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, 1st Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, 110001, People’s Republic of China

    Yi Lin & Yunjie Wang

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, No. 6, Tiantan Xili, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100050, People’s Republic of China

    Guozhen Zhang, Jiangfei Wang, Xiaoguang Qiu & Tao Jiang

  3. Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China

    Jing Zhang

  4. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Guangzu Gao

  5. The Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Min Li

  6. Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Yong Chen

  7. Department of Neuropathology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Beijing, 100050, People’s Republic of China

    Guilin Li

  8. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research of Ministry of Education, Clinical Research Laboratory, Peking University School of Oncology, Beijing Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, 100142, People’s Republic of China

    Sonya-Wei Song

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  1. Yi Lin
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  2. Guozhen Zhang
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  3. Jing Zhang
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  4. Guangzu Gao
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  5. Min Li
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  10. Xiaoguang Qiu
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  11. Yunjie Wang
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  12. Tao Jiang
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Correspondence to Yi Lin.

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Lin, Y., Zhang, G., Zhang, J. et al. A panel of four cytokines predicts the prognosis of patients with malignant gliomas. J Neurooncol 114, 199–208 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-013-1171-x

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