Proteomics pinpoints alterations in grade I meningiomas of male versus female patients

Abstract

Meningiomas are among the most common primary tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) and originate from the arachnoid or meningothelial cells of the meninges. Surgery is the first option of treatment, but depending on the location and invasion patterns, complete removal of the tumor is not always feasible. Reports indicate many differences in meningiomas from male versus female patients; for example, incidence is higher in females, whereas males usually develop the malignant and more aggressive type. With this as motivation, we used shotgun proteomics to compare the proteomic profile of grade I meningioma biopsies of male and female patients. Our results listed several differentially abundant proteins between the two groups; some examples are S100-A4 and proteins involved in RNA splicing events. For males, we identified enriched pathways for cell-matrix organization and for females, pathways related to RNA transporting and processing. We believe our findings contribute to the understanding of the molecular differences between grade I meningiomas of female and male patients.

Figure 1

Venn diagram of the meningioma samples from the patients included in the study. Female group with 235 exclusive proteins. Male group with 194 exclusive proteins. A total of 1,946 proteins are common to female and male groups.

Figure 2

Differently abundant proteins identified in the female and male groups. The y- and x- axis are related to the fold change and p-value. Red dots are proteins that do not satisfy our fold-change cutoff and the established False Discovery Rate (FDR). Green dots are proteins whose abundancy fold change satisfy the criteria but not the FDR. The 37 blue dots represent proteins that satisfy both criteria.