Immune-related signature predicts the prognosis and immunotherapy benefit in bladder cancer.

There is no good prognostic model that could predict the prognosis of bladder cancer (BCa) and the benefit of immunotherapy.

Through the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm, we constructed a 13-mRNA immune signature from the TCGA cohort (n = 406). We validated its prognostic value and predictive value for the benefit of immunotherapy with four independent validation cohort (GSE13507 [n = 256], GSE31684 [n = 93], GSE32894 [n = 308], and IMvigor210 cohort [n = 298]).

Our results indicating that high-risk group with higher inhibitory immune cell infiltration (regulatory T cells [Tregs] and macrophage, etc), higher expression of immune checkpoints, and more T cell suppressive pathways (transforming growth factor β [TGF-β], epithelial-mesenchymal transition [EMT], etc) were activated. Besides, the immune signature showed a good predictive value for the benefit of immunotherapy in a cohort of urothelial carcinoma patients treated with PD-L1.

The immune signature constructed is convenient to classify the immunotherapeutic susceptibility of patients with BCa, so as to achieve precision immunotherapy for BCa.

Cancer medicine. 2020 Aug 25 [Epub ahead of print]

Yejinpeng Wang, Liang Chen, Mengxue Yu, Yayun Fang, Kaiyu Qian, Gang Wang, Lingao Ju, Yu Xiao, Xinghuan Wang

Department of Urology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China., Department of Biological Repositories, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.