Research Paper
Construction and experimental validation of a B cell-related gene signature to predict the prognosis and immunotherapeutic sensitivity in bladder cancer
- 1 Department of Urology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong, China
Received: March 2, 2023 Accepted: May 9, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204753How to Cite
Copyright: © 2023 Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: B cells are essential components of tumor microenvironment and exert important functions in anti-tumor immune response. However, the prognosis value of B cell-related genes in bladder cancer (BLCA) remains obscure.
Materials and Methods: The infiltrating levels of B cells were measured via the CD20 staining in the local samples and the computational biology analyses in the TCGA-BLCA cohort. The single-cell RNA sequencing analysis, gene-pair strategy, LASSO regression, random forest, and Cox regression were used for B cell-related signature construction. TCGA-BLCA cohort was chosen as the training cohort, and three independent cohorts from GEO and the local cohort were used for external validation. 326 B cells were adopted to explore the association between the model and B cells’ biological processes. TIDE algorithm and two BLCA cohorts receiving anti-PD1/PDL1 treatment were utilized to detect its predictive ability to the immunotherapeutic response.
Results: High infiltration levels of B cells heralded favorable prognosis, both in the TCGA-BLCA cohort and the local cohort (all P < 0.05). A 5-gene-pair model was established and served as a significant prognosis predictor across multiple cohorts (pooled hazard ratio = 2.79, 95% confidence interval = 2.22-3.49). The model could evaluate the prognosis effectively in 21 of 33 cancer types (P < 0.05). The signature was negatively associated with B cells’ activation, proliferation, and infiltrating levels, and could serve as a potential predictor of immunotherapeutic outcomes.
Conclusions: A B cell-related gene signature was constructed to predict the prognosis and immunotherapeutic sensitivity in BLCA, helping to guide the personalized treatment.