KIF3C is associated with favorable prognosis in glioma patients and may be regulated by PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway.

PURPOSE

Glioma is the most common malignant primary tumor in the central nervous system (CNS). KIF3C, a motor protein of the kinesin superfamily, is highly expressed in the CNS. Although KIF3C has been identified as a potential therapeutic target in malignant cancers, the expression and function of KIF3C in glioma remains unclear.

METHODS

The clinical characteristics of 53 patients with graded glioma (WHO I-IV) were analyzed in this study. The expression of KIF3C in glioma was evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Survival analysis was compared between higher and lower KIF3C expression groups. Data regarding the expression of KIF3C and survival analysis were also confirmed using the database from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The potential mechanism of the regulation of tumor growth by KIF3C was investigated by an analysis of the public database from Oncomine.

RESULTS

Expression of the KIF3C protein was higher in the low-grade glioma (LGG) group (n = 20) than that in the high-grade glioma (HGG) group (n = 33) (P < 0.05). Glioma patients with higher expression of KIF3C had longer survival time (P < 0.05). The subgroup analysis showed that higher KIF3C expression predicted longer survival time in the LGG group (P < 0.05). These clinical results were consistent with those in the TCGA database. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the KIF3C mRNA expression was upregulated significantly in response to PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway inhibition.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated that KIF3C might inhibit glioma growth to prolong survival time by regulating the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, providing a potential therapeutic target in glioma.