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Comprehensive analysis reveals PLK3 as a promising immune target and prognostic indicator in glioma

by TIANYUN ZHU1,2,#, CUNYAN ZHAO1,2,#, RUI GONG1,2, AO QIAN1, XIAOSHU WANG1, FANGHUI LU2, GANG HUO1, LIANGJUN QIAO3, SONG CHEN1,*

1 Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China
2 Institute of Life Sciences, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China
3 College of Basic Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China

* Corresponding Author: SONG CHEN. Email: email
# These authors contributed equally to this work

Oncology Research 2025, 33(2), 431-442. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2024.050794

Abstract

Background: PLK3, which played an important role in cell cycle progression and stress response, was identified as highly expressed in various carcinomas. However, the functions, molecular characteristics, and prognostic value of PLK3 in glioma remained unexplored. Methods: We analyzed PLK3 expression in glioma samples from multiple databases. Both overexpression and knockdown of Plk3 were performed to investigate tumor cell growth in glioma, and the transplanted glioma mouse model demonstrated the role of Plk3 on tumor progression. Immunohistochemistry was conducted to detect PLK3 expression and immune cell infiltration. The trans-well assay for PLK3 on the immune cells recruitment was also determined. Additionally, we further evaluated the correlation between PLK3 and PD-1/PD-L1 as well as other immune checkpoints. Results: We found that an increased level of PLK3 was associated with malignancy and poor prognosis of glioma, and further validated that PLK3 promoted glioma progression. PLK3 also played a crucial role in immune response and was involved in Tcell immune suppression. Specifically, we revealed that CD8+ and CD4+ Tcell infiltration was decreased in Plk3 overexpressed xenografts. Furthermore, it was predicted that PLK3 was synergistic with other checkpoint members in glioma. In general, high expression of PLK3 was associated with a malignant process and poor prognosis in glioma patients. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that PLK3 expression level was highly correlated to the malignancy of gliomas, and we validated that PLK3 could promote the GBM progress in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, PLK3 played important roles in Tcell and neutrophil immune response in glioma. Besides, the conspicuous association between PLK3 and other immune checkpoints was also observed. Crucially, high-level PLK3 expression was revealed to be related to poor clinical prognosis. These results demonstrated that PLK3 may serve as a prognostic biomarker and a potential target for glioma.

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APA Style
ZHU, T., ZHAO, C., GONG, R., QIAN, A., WANG, X. et al. (2025). Comprehensive analysis reveals PLK3 as a promising immune target and prognostic indicator in glioma. Oncology Research, 33(2), 431–442. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2024.050794
Vancouver Style
ZHU T, ZHAO C, GONG R, QIAN A, WANG X, LU F, et al. Comprehensive analysis reveals PLK3 as a promising immune target and prognostic indicator in glioma. Oncol Res. 2025;33(2):431–442. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2024.050794
IEEE Style
T. ZHU et al., “Comprehensive analysis reveals PLK3 as a promising immune target and prognostic indicator in glioma,” Oncol. Res., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 431–442, 2025. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2024.050794



cc Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Tech Science Press.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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