Retinol dehydrogenase 10 promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition in spinal cord gliomas via PI3K/AKT pathway

Background: Spinal cord glioma (SCG), a rare subset of central nervous system (CNS) glioma, represents a complex challenge in neuro-oncology. There has been research showing that Retinol Dehydrogenase 10 (RDH10) may be a tumor promoting factor in brain glioma, but the biological effects of RDH10 remain undefined in SCG. Methods: We performed gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and unsupervised clustering analysis to investigate the roles of EMT (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) in glioma. DEG (differently expressed gene) screening and correlation analysis were conducted to filter the candidate genes which were closely associated with EMT process in SCG. Enrichment analysis and GSVA (Gene Set Variation Analysis) were conducted to investigate the potential mechanism of RDH10 for SCG. Trans-well and healing assay were performed to explore the role of RDH10 in the invasion of SCG. Western blotting was performed to evaluate the levels of markers in PI3K-AKT and EMT pathway. In vivo tests were conducted to verify the role of RDH10 in EMT process. Results: Bioinformatic analysis demonstrated the EMT pathway was associated with dismal prognosis of glioma. Further analysis demonstrated that RDH10 showed the strongest correlation with the EMT process. Retinol Dehydrogenase 10 expression was significantly increased in SCG tissues, correlating with advanced tumor grade and unfavorable prognosis. Functional analysis indicated that decreasing RDH10 levels impeded the invasive and migratory abilities of SCG cells, whereas increasing RDH10 levels augmented them. Enrichment analysis and western blot revealed that RDH10 regulated EMT process of SCG by PI3K-AKT pathway. We observed that the enhanced invasion ability and increased EMT-related protein induced by RDH10 overexpression can be suppressed by PI3K-AKT pathway inhibitor (LY294002). Conclusion: Our research found that RDH10 was an effective biomarker associated with tumor grade and prognosis of SCG. RDH10 could regulate EMT process of SCG through PI3K-AKT pathway.