Integration of bulk RNA sequencing and single-cell RNA sequencing reveals new natural killer cells promising as biomarkers for meningiomas and glioblastomas

Abstract BACKGROUND: Meningioma (MND) and glioblastoma (GBM) are two of the most common tumors in the central nervous system. However, the exploration of common genetic features and molecular mechanisms between MND and GBM is unclear. METHODS: we conducted an analysis of single-cell sequencing profiles on MND and GBM. Our main focus was on the expression of NK cell-associated genes, which were examined for intercellular communication analysis, cell cycle analysis, and GSVA enrichment analysis. To validate our findings, we used the GEO transcriptome dataset to compare immune-related gene profiles of MND and GBM patients. Furthermore, we delved into the characterization and immune molecular mechanisms of NK cell-related genes that were co-expressed in both diseases. RESULTS:In this study, we analyzed single-cell sequencing data from 3 glioma patients and 3 meningioma patients to investigate the role of NK cells. We identified and tagged 108 shared NK cell marker genes. To validate NK cell expression, we used the CIBERSORT immune infiltration assay. The GSVA results indicated that both diseases showed high expression in angiogenesis and coagulation. Additionally, we employed the PPI interaction network and the Cyto-Hubba algorithm to screen 19 Hub genes. The differential expression and immune infiltration of these genes were further validated in GSE21354 and GSE43290 datasets, and the AUC value for each gene was calculated. Finally, we constructed a TF-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network based on these Hub genes CONCLUSION: This study identifies shared NK cell marker genes between glioblastoma (GBM) and meningioma (MND) and confirms a new NK cell as a biomarker for GBM and MND.