Prothymosin-α (
PTMA), a
nuclear protein, is strikingly associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes in many
cancers. However, no information about its clinical relevance in
glioma was available. Therefore in the present study, we evaluated the prognostic utility of this
protein in a cohort of 81
glioma patients. The
PTMA expression was assessed by immunohistochemical analysis, quantitative PCR, and Western blotting. Furthermore, the association of
PTMA with clinicopathological features and molecular alterations were assessed in the patient cohort and validated in multiomics datasets, The
Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA; n=667) and Chinese
Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA; n=1013). We observed an increase in
PTMA expression with increasing histological grades of this
malignancy.
PTMA immunostaining also displayed a strong positive association with the MIB-1 index. Univariate analysis revealed a superior prognostic value of
PTMA to predict overall survival (OS) as compared with the routinely used markers (p53,
isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1 (IDH1), α-
thalassemia/
intellectual disability syndrome X-linked (ATRX), and Ki-67). Interestingly, in Cox regression analysis it emerged as an independent predictor of OS (hazard ratio (HR) = 13.71, 95% CI = 5.96-31.52, P<0.0001). Thus, our results demonstrate the potential prognostic utility of
PTMA in
glioma which may prove useful in the management of this deadly
malignancy.