Coordinated changes in midkine expression and midkine-associated multiomic profile in glioma microenvironment.

ABSTRACT: Midkine (MDK), a multifunctional growth factor, has been implicated in promoting tumor progression, yet its role in glioblastoma (GBM) remains insufficiently characterized. To investigate MDK's function in glioma, we integrated four RNA-Seq datasets into a harmonized cohort of 1,017 adult gliomas, including 256 GBM samples. We complemented this with freshly collected human GBM tissues and matched primary cell cultures to evaluate MDK expression and secretion patterns, further contextualized using single-cell RNA-Seq. Finally, we tested the impact of GBM-derived MDK on macrophage secretome composition to validate our in silico observations. We found that MDK expression increases with tumor grade in IDHwildtype gliomas, accompanied by a shift in isoform proportions favoring the canonical MDK

SUBMITTER: Lachota M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12368106 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature