Identification of Prognostic Biomarkers of Potential Hub Genes in Urothelial Carcinoma and Function in Microenvironment
Authors: Chu Wei , Zhang Bing , Gong Haifeng , Zhao Qianqian , Chen Jun , Ji Hong 
Published: May 2021

Background Urothelial carcinoma (UC) is the most common histological type of urinary system. In the past decades, despite the advances in UC diagnosis and therapy, there are still challenges to improve the overall survival (OS) of UC patients. PD-L1 inhibitor and PD-1 inhibitor have been approved for treating invasive UC, however, only about 20% of patients with metastatic UC show clinical benefits from immune checkpoint inhibitors. Therefor, bioinformatics tools were utilized to screen prognostic-related biomarkers, and analyze their relationship with immunocyte in UC, hoping to provide new ideas for the clinical treatment of UC patients.Methods Three gene expression profiles (i.e. GSE32548, GSE32894 and GSE48075) were selected from GEO, and divide them into invasive and superficial UC group for study. NetworkAnalyst tool was used to construct gene regulatory network of DEGs, while DAVID and Metascape were utilized to perform gene ontology (GO) and kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis of DEGs. The hub genes were screened by STRING and cytoscape, and the ONCOMINE, GEPIA, UALCAN, cBioPortal and HPA databases were used to analyze the expression differences and survival curves of UC at the DNA, RNA, protein levels and protein levels. TIMER was used to analyze the relationship between hub genes and immunocyte infiltration.Results In total, 63 DEGs were identified from the GEO database of UC, of which 31 and 32 were up-and down-regulated. GO/KEGG pathway analysis identified DEGs were mainly enriched in the collagen catabolic process, extracellular matrix (ECM) organization, ECM structural constituent and ECM-receptor interaction. Nine hub genes (i.e. COL1A1, COL1A2, COL3A1, COL5A2, MMP9, POSTN, SPP1, VCAN and THBS2) upregulated in invasive UC compared with superficial UC were identified. cBioportal database analysis showed that 35% of UC patients presented genetic variants in the hub genes, of which amplification and deletion mutations were the most common. ONCOMINE and UALCAN database analysis showed that the mRNA expression of all hub genes in invasive UC was significantly higher than that in superficial UC and normal tissues. HPA database analysis showed that there was up-regulation of COL3A1, SPP1, POSTN and VCAN protein in UC tissues than in normal tissues. GEPIA showed that COL1A2, COL3A1, THBS2, and VCAN were positively correlated with the OS rate among patients with UC (P < 0.05). UALCAN showed that UC patients with high expression of COL1A1, COL1A2, COL5A2 and POSTN had a poorer prognosis (P < 0.05). TRRUST database analysis indicated that there was a significant correlation between the expression of the hub genes and the infiltration of CD4 + T cells, CD8 + T cells, macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells.Conclusion Hub genes played important roles in pathogenesis and treatment prognosis of UC. Hub genes analysis provides new predictive biomolecules for UC immunotherapy and prognosis judgment.