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Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal and frequent type of brain tumor, leading patients to death in approximately 14 months after diagnosis. GBM treatment consists in surgical removal followed by radio and chemotherapy. However, tumors commonly relapse and the treatment promotes only a slight increase in patient survival. Thus, uncovering the cellular mechanisms involved in GBM resistance is of utmost interest, and the use of cell lines has been shown to be an extremely important tool. In this work, the exploration of RNAseq data from different GBM cell lines revealed different expression signatures, distinctly correlated with the behavior of GBM cell lines regarding proliferation indexes and radio-resistance. U87MG and U138MG cells, which presented expressively reduced proliferation and increased radio-resistance, showed a particular expression signature encompassing enrichment in many extracellular matrix (ECM) and receptor genes. Contrasting, U251MG and T98G cells, that presented higher proliferation and sensibility to radiation, exhibited distinct signatures revealing consistent enrichments for DNA repair processes and although several genes from the ECM-receptor pathway showed up-regulation, enrichments for this pathway were not detected. The ECM-receptor is a master regulatory pathway that is known to impact several cellular processes including: survival, proliferation, migration, invasion, and DNA damage signaling and repair, corroborating the associations we found. Furthermore, searches to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) repository revealed prognostic correlations with glioma patients for the majority of genes highlighted in the signatures and led to the identification of 31 ECM-receptor genes individually correlated with radiation responsiveness. Interestingly, we observed an association between the number of upregulated genes and survivability greater than 5 years after diagnosis, where almost all the patients that presented 21 or more upregulated genes were deceased before 5 years. Altogether our findings suggest the clinical relevance of ECM-receptor genes signature found here for radiotherapy decision and as biomarkers of glioma prognosis.

Astrocytomas are the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumors in adults. The World Health Organization (WHO) assorts them into grades, from I to IV, based on histopathological features that reflect their malignancy [1]. Alongside with tumor progression, comes an increased proliferation, genomic instability, infiltration in normal brain tissue and resistance to treatments. The high genomic instability forges tumor cells enhancing key proteins that avoid cells from collapsing and favor therapy resistance [2]. To explore genes and pathways associated with tumor progression phenotypes we analyzed gene expression in a panel of non-tumor and glioma cell lines, namely: ACBRI371, non-tumor human astrocytes; HDPC, fibroblasts derived from dental pulp; Res186, Res259, Res286 and UW467 that include grade I, II and III astrocytoma cell lines derived from pediatric tumors; and T98G, U343MG, U87MG, U138MG and U251MG, all derived from GBM (grade IV). We also profiled gene expression changes caused by exogenously induced replicative stress, performing RNA sequencing with camptothecin (CPT)-treated cells. Here we describe the RNA-sequencing data set acquired, including quality of reads and sequencing consistency, as well as the bioinformatics strategy used to analyze it. We also compared gene expression patterns and pathway enrichment between non-tumor versus lower-grade (LGG), non-tumor versus GBM, LGG versus GBM, and CPT-treated versus non-treated cells. In brief, a total of 6467 genes showed differential expression and 5 pathways were enriched in tumor progression, while 2279 genes and 7 pathways were altered under the replication stress condition. The raw data was deposited in the NCBI BioProject database under the accession number PRJNA631805. Our dataset is valuable for researchers interested in differential gene expression among different astrocytoma grades and in expression changes caused by replicative stress, facilitating studies that seek novel biomarkers of glioma progression and treatment resistance.

Abstract Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and malignant type of primary brain tumor, showing rapid development and resistance to therapies. On average, patients survive 14.6 months after diagnosis and less than 5% survive five years or more. Several pieces of evidence have suggested that the DNA damage signaling and repair activities are directly correlated with GBM phenotype and exhibit opposite functions in cancer establishment and progression. The functions of these pathways appear to present a dual role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression. Activation and/or overexpression of ATRX, ATM and RAD51 genes were extensively characterized as barriers for GBM initiation, but paradoxically the exacerbated activity of these genes was further associated with cancer progression to more aggressive stages. Excessive amounts of other DNA repair proteins, namely HJURP, EXO1, NEIL3, BRCA2, and BRIP, have also been connected to proliferative competence, resistance and poor prognosis. This scenario suggests that these networks help tumor cells to manage replicative stress and treatment-induced damage, diminishing genome instability and conferring therapy resistance. Finally, in this review we address promising new drugs and therapeutic approaches with potential to improve patient survival. However, despite all technological advances, the prognosis is still dismal and further research is needed to dissect such complex mechanisms.

Astrocytomas are the most common primary brain tumors. They are very resistant to therapies and usually progress rapidly to high-grade lesions. Here, we investigated the potential role of DNA repair genes in astrocytoma progression and resistance. To this aim, we performed a polymerase chain reaction array-based analysis focused on DNA repair genes and searched for correlations between expression patters and survival prognoses. We found 19 genes significantly altered. Combining these genes in all possible arrangements, we found 421 expression signatures strongly associated with poor survival. Importantly, five genes (DDB2, EXO1, NEIL3, BRCA2, and BRIP1) were independently correlated with worse prognoses, revealing single-gene signatures. Moreover, silencing of EXO1, which is remarkably overexpressed, promoted faster restoration of double-strand breaks, while NEIL3 knockdown, also highly overexpressed, caused an increment in DNA damage and cell death after irradiation of glioblastoma cells. These results disclose the importance of DNA repair pathways for the maintenance of genomic stability of high-grade astrocytomas and suggest that EXO1 and NEIL3 overexpression confers more efficiency for double-strand break repair and resistance to reactive oxygen species, respectively. Thereby, we highlight these two genes as potentially related with tumor aggressiveness and promising candidates as novel therapeutic targets.

Os gliomas são tumores cerebrais definidos patologicamente pela presença de células com características histológicas e imuno-histoquímicas que evidenciam diferenciação glial. Dentre eles, os astrocitomas são os mais frequentes em adultos. Estes tumores normalmente apresentam infiltração difusa no tecido adjacente, são resistentes aos tratamentos e têm uma tendência natural para a progressão maligna. O tratamento padrão atual consiste na realização de ressecção cirúrgica do tecido tumoral seguida de radio e quimioterapia concomitantes, porém o prognóstico permanece extremamente pobre. O quimioterápico padrão-ouro no tratamento de GBM é o agente alquilante de DNA temozolamida (TMZ). Entretanto, os danos induzidos pela TMZ podem ser revertidos pela ação da maquinaria de reparo de DNA, impedindo a morte celular e levando à resistência do GBM ao tratamento. No presente estudo correlacionamos a expressão dos genes ATM, BRCA2, BRIP1, EXO1, NEIL3, RAD54L e XRCC2, envolvidos em reparo de DNA e sabidamente superexpressos em GBM, com a resistência das linhagens celulares T98G e U87MG ao tratamento com TMZ. Mostramos que a linhagem T98G é a mais resistente ao tratamento com TMZ, e apresenta superexpressão de BRCA2, BRIP1, EXO1, NEIL3, RAD54L e XRCC2 e sub-expressão de ATM. Vimos também que a linhagem U87MG, mais sensível ao tratamento com TMZ, apresenta expressão reduzida dos genes ATM, BRCA2 e EXO1. Portanto, estes dados sugerem uma correlação positiva entre a expressão de genes de reparo de DNA e a resistência das células de GBM à TMZ.Palavras-chave: glioblastoma, T98G, U87MG, genes de reparo de DNA, resistência e temozolamida. ABSTRACT Gliomas are brain tumors pathologically defined by the presence of cells with histological and immunohistochemical characteristics of glial differentiation. Among them, astrocytomas are the most common in adults. These tumors usually show diffuse infiltration into adjacent tissue, are resistant to treatment and have a natural tendency to malignant progression. The current standard treatment consists in surgical removal of the tumor followed by radiotherapy and concurrent chemotherapy. However, the prognosis remains extremely poor. The first line chemotherapy for GBM treatment is the DNA alkylating agent temozolamide (TMZ). Nevertheless, TMZ-induced damage can be reversed by the action of DNA repair machinery that prevents cell death and leads to relapse. In this study we correlated the expression of the DNA damage-signaling gene, ATM kinase, and the DNA repair genes BRCA2, BRIP1, EXO1, NEIL3, RAD54L and XRCC2, with the resistance of T98G and U87MG cell lines to TMZ. T98G cells were more resistant to TMZ treatment and showed overexpression of all DNA repair genes, while ATM kinase was down regulated. We also observed that U87MG cells, more sensitive to TMZ, have reduced expression of ATM, BRCA2 and EXO1. Therefore, these data suggest a positive correlation between the expression of DNA repair genes and the resistance of GBM cells to TMZ.Keywords: Glioblastoma. T98G. U87MG. DNA repair genes. Resistance and temozolomide.

BACKGROUND: Diffuse astrocytomas are the most common type of primary brain cancer in adults. They present a wide variation in differentiation and aggressiveness, being classified into three grades: low-grade diffuse astrocytoma (grade II), anaplastic astrocytoma (grade III) and glioblastoma multiforme (grade IV), the most frequent and the major lethal type. Recent studies have highlighted the molecular heterogeneity of astrocytomas and demonstrated that large-scale analysis of gene expression could help in their classification and treatment. In this context, we previously demonstrated that HJURP, a novel protein involved in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks, is highly overexpressed in glioblastoma. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we show that HJURP is remarkably overexpressed in a cohort composed of 40 patients with different grade astrocytomas. We also observed that tumors presenting the higher expression levels of HJURP are associated with poor survival prognosis, indicating HJURP overexpression as an independent prognostic factor of death risk for astrocytoma patients. More importantly, we found that HJURP knockdown strongly affects the maintenance of glioblastoma cells in a selective manner. Glioblastoma cells showed remarkable cell cycle arrest and premature senescence that culminated in elevated levels of cell death, differently from non-tumoral cells that were minimally affected. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that HJURP has an important role in the maintenance of extremely proliferative cells of high-grade gliomas and point to HJURP as a potential therapeutic target for the development of novel treatments for glioma patients.