Bromodomain PHD-finger transcription factor promotes glioma progression and indicates poor prognosis

Glioma is one of the most deadly central nervous system tumors around the world. Uncontrollable cell proliferation and invasion are key factors of cancer progression as well as glioma. Available evidence suggests that bromodomain PHD-finger transcription factor (BPTF) plays an important role in stem cell proliferation and differentiation, as well as in progression of some tumors, but there is little data on glioma. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the functional role and potential clinical value of BPTF in glioma. Public database, real-time PCR and western blotting were used to detect the expression of BPTF in glioma tissue and cells. The relationship between BPTF with clinicopathological features and the prognosis of glioma patients was analyzed by immunohistochemical staining in 113 cases of paraffin-embedded primary glioma specimens. Furthermore, cytological experiments were conducted to elucidate the functional role of BPTF in glioma U251 cells, as well as the potential molecular mechanism. The expression of BPTF in glioma tissues was significantly higher than that in normal brain tissues. The association analysis results revealed that high BPTF expression was significantly associated with WHO grade and tumor size. Survival analysis revealed that the BPTF high-expression group had poorer overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with the low-expression group. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses revealed that BPTF expression was an independent prognostic factor for the OS and PFS of glioma patients. Cytological experiments revealed that BPTF overexpression could significantly promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of human glioma U251 cells. A study of the underlying mechanism indicated that BPTF promoted glioma progression via MYC signaling. Our results preliminarily indicated that BPTF promoted glioma progression via MYC signaling and may be a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for glioma patients.