Immune Signature-Based Risk Stratification and Prediction of Immunotherapy Efficacy for Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma

Fangfang Liang; Yansong Xu; Yi Chen; Huage Zhong; Zhen Wang; Tianwen Nong; Jincai Zhong

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2021.673918

Immune Signature-Based Risk Stratification and Prediction of Immunotherapy Efficacy for Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma

Front Mol Biosci. 2021 Dec 24:8:673918. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.673918. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Fangfang Liang¹, Yansong Xu², Yi Chen³, Huage Zhong³, Zhen Wang³, Tianwen Nong¹, Jincai Zhong¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Oncology, Guangxi Medical University First Affiliated Hospital, Nanning, China.
² Emergency Department, Guangxi Medical University First Affiliated Hospital, Nanning, China.
³ College of Oncology, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.

Abstract

Immune-related genes (IRGs) are closely related to tumor progression and the immune microenvironment. Few studies have investigated the effect of tumor immune microenvironment on the survival and response to immune checkpoint inhibitors of patients with bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA). We constructed two IRG-related prognostic signatures based on gene-immune interaction for predicting risk stratification and immunotherapeutic responses. We also verified their predictive ability on internal and overall data sets. Patients with BLCA were divided into high- and low-risk groups. The high-risk group had poor survival, enriched innate immune-related cell subtypes, low tumor mutation burden, and poor response to anti-PD-L1 therapy. Our prognostic signatures can be used as reliable prognostic biomarkers, which may be helpful to screen the people who will benefit from immunotherapy and guide the clinical decision-making of patients with BLCA.

Keywords: bladder urothelial carcinoma; immune checkpoint inhibitor; immune-related genes; immunotherapy; prognostic model; tumor immune microenvironment.