Imaging Genomic Mapping Reveals Sex-Specific Oncogenic Associations of Cell Death in Glioblastoma (Glioblastoma-Genomic-Mapping)

To identify the molecular profiles of cell death as defined by MRI necrosis volumes and uncover sex-specific molecular signatures potentially driving oncogenesis and cell death in glioblastoma.
We identified the molecular profiles of 99 patients (female 30, male 69) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) with quantitative MR-imaging data were obtained from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). Volumes of necrosis on MRI were extracted. Differential gene expression profiles were obtained in those patients, including males and females separately, with high versus low MR volumes of tumor necrosis. Ingenuity pathway analysis and MirWalk were used for mRNA-microRNA interaction analysis. Our histopathology dataset (N= 368; female 144, males 224) was used to validate the MRI findings by assessing the amount of cell death. Connectivity map was used identify therapeutics with potential to target sex specific cell death in glioblastoma.
Our results suggest that GBM cell death may be driven by sex-specific molecular pathways.