An immunogenic cell death-related lncRNA signature correlates with prognosis and tumor immune microenvironment in bladder cancer.

ABSTRACT

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a newly discovered form of cellular demise that triggers adaptive immune responses mediated by T cells. However, the immunogenic cell death-related lncRNAs (ICDRLs) involved in bladder cancer (BC) development and progression remain to be further elucidated. Molecular profiling data and clinicopathological information for BC patients were obtained from TCGA, and the ICDRGs list was obtained from published literature. For the identification of ICDRLs, Pearson co-expression analysis was performed, and a prognostic signature based on 13 ICDRLs was constructed by univariate assays and LASSO assays. Herein, an ICDRLSig consisting of 13 ICDRLs was constructed. KM curves and ROC curves demonstrated that the constructed signature in the TCGA training, testing, entire and external sets have good predictive performance. Multivariate assays illuminated that the signature is an independent predictor for BC patients' OS, exhibiting greater predictive power for the survival than traditional clinicopathological features. Additionally, patients in the high-ICDRLSig risk subgroup had more abundant immune infiltration, higher immune checkpoint gene expression, lower TMB and poorer response to immunotherapy. We have developed a novel ICDRLSig that can be exploited for survival prediction and provide a reference for further individualized treatment.