ABSTRACT
Introduction: Gliomas, the most prevalent tumors of the central nervous system, are known for their aggressive nature and poor prognosis. The heterogeneity among gliomas leads to varying responses to the same treatments, even among similar glioma types. In our study, we efferocytosis-related subtypes and explored their characteristics in terms of immune landscape, intercellular communication, and metabolic processes, ultimately elucidating their potential clinical implications. Methods and Results: We first identified efferocytosis-related subtypes in Bulk RNA-seq using the NMF algorithm. We then preliminarily demonstrated the correlation of these subtypes with efferocytosis by examining enrichment scores of cell death pathways, macrophage infiltration, and the expression of immune ligands. Our analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data further supported the association of these subtypes with efferocytosis. Through enrichment analysis, we found that efferocytosis-related subtypes differ from other types of gliomas in terms of immune landscape, intercellular communication, and substance metabolism. Moreover, we found that the efferocytosis-related classification is a prognostic factor with robust predictive performance by calculating the AUC values. We also found that efferocytosis-related subtypes, when compared with other gliomas in drug sensitivity, survival, and TIDE scores, show a clear link to the effectiveness of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy in glioma patients. Discussion: We identified efferocytosis-related subtypes in gliomas by analyzing the expression of 137 efferocytosis-associated genes, exploring their characteristics in immune landscape, intercellular communication, metabolic processes, and genomic variations. Moreover, we discovered that the classification of efferocytosis-related subtypes has a strong prognostic predictive power and holds potential significance in guiding clinical treatment.
ABSTRACT
The grassland leafhopper genus Aconurella is widespread in the Old World. Species of this genus are difficult to identify by traditional morphological characters but the morphology-based species classification in this genus has not previously been tested using molecular data. This study analysed DNA sequence data from two mitochondrial genes (COI, 16S) and one nuclear gene (ITS2) to infer the phylogenetic relationships and status of five previously recognized Aconurella species and compare the performance of different molecular species-delimitation methods using single and multiple loci. The analysis divided the included haplotypes into five well-supported subclades, most corresponding to existing morphology-based species concepts. However, different molecular species delimitation methods (jMOTU, ABGD, bPTP, GMYC and BPP) yielded somewhat different results, suggesting the presence of between 4 and 8 species, sometimes lumping the haplotypes of Aconurella diplachnis and Aconurella sibirica into a single species or recognizing multiple putative species within Aconurella prolixa. Considering the different results yielded by various methods employing single loci, the BPP method, which combines data from multiple loci, may be more reliable for delimiting species of Aconurella. Our results suggest that the morphological characters previously used to identify these species are reliable and adequately reflect boundaries between genetically distinct taxa.
