Isoform 2 of DLG2 gene as a possible candidate tumour suppressor of neuroblastoma

Abstract: Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most frequent extracranial solid tumour in childhood. The clinical diagnosis of NB is difficult due to the age of the patient and the vague appearance of the symptoms. Moreover, there are two groups of aggressive NBs, one with MYCN amplification and the other with an 11q deletion. Some genes could be a candidate suppressor for NB, e.g., the DLG2 gene that resides within the 11q-deleted region. The DLG2 gene has a large number of exons and multiple isoforms depending on the alternative splicing process. Moreover, these isoforms can include the L27 domain or not. This study aimed to analyse, by applying bioinformatic tools, if isoform 2, which does not have L27 domain, could be a candidate suppressor for this disease. RNA-seq samples from different human cell lines were collected from NCBI and a quality analysis was performed. The filtered samples were run in R and Python programs to do a visualization of the exon expression level and the prediction of Rsubread for exon-exon junctions. The results showed that isoform 2 of DLG2 gene was not expressed in the samples of NB, which is a promising result for being a candidate suppressor of NB. Furthermore, the prediction of exon-exon junctions by Rsubread was confirmed to be very accurate. In conclusion, this study shows that isoform 2 of DLG2 gene could be a candidate tumour suppressor in NB that could, in the future, be used as a target to help to detect earlier the presence of NB and increase the life expectancy of children who suffer from this disease.