Development of a prognostic signature for bladder cancer based on immune-related genes

BACKGROUND: Although the prognosis of patients with bladder cancer (BC) has improved significantly with the use of multimodal therapy, reliable prognostic biomarkers are still urgently needed due to the heterogeneity of tumors. Our aim was to develop an individualized immune-related gene pair (IRGP) signature that could precisely predict prognosis in BC patients. METHODS: Gene expression profiles and corresponding clinical information were collected from eight microarray data sets and one RNA-Seq data set. RESULTS: Among 1,811 immune genes, a 30-IRGP signature consisting of 52 unique genes was generated in the training cohort, which significantly stratified patients into low- and high-risk groups in terms of overall survival. In the testing and validation cohorts, the IRGP signature was also associated with patient prognosis in the univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Several biological processes, including the immune response, chemotaxis, and the inflammatory response, were enriched among genes in the IRGP signature. When the signature was integrated with the TNM stage, an IRGP nomogram was developed and showed improved prognostic accuracy relative to the IRGP signature alone. CONCLUSIONS: In short, we identified a robust IRGP signature for estimating overall survival in BC patients that could also be used as a promising biomarker for identifying high-risk patients for individualized therapy.