Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 23 pp 11474—11489

Prognostic value of immune-related genes in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Bangbei Wan1, , Bo Liu2, , Yuan Huang3, , Gang Yu1, , Cai Lv1, ,

  • 1 Department of Urology, Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine Affiliated Haikou Hospital, Haikou, Hainan 570208, China
  • 2 Laboratory of Developmental Cell Biology and Disease, School of Ophthalmology and Optometry and Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325003, China
  • 3 Department of Neurology, Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine Affiliated Haikou Hospital, Haikou, Hainan 570208, China

Received: September 11, 2019       Accepted: November 19, 2019       Published: December 10, 2019      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102548
How to Cite

Copyright © 2019 Wan 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

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common pathological subtype of renal cell carcinoma, and immune-related genes (IRGs) are key contributors to its development. In this study, the gene expression profiles and clinical data of ccRCC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and the cBioPortal database, respectively. IRGs were obtained from the ImmPort database. We analyzed the expression of IRGs in ccRCC, and discovered 681 that were differentially expressed between ccRCC and normal kidney tissues. Univariate Cox regression analysis was used to identify prognostic differentially expressed IRGs (PDEIRGs). Using Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression analyses, we detected seven optimal PDEIRGs (PLAU, ISG15, IRF9, ARG2, RNASE2, SEMA3G and UCN) and used them to construct a risk model to predict the prognosis of ccRCC patients. This model accurately stratified patients with different survival outcomes and precisely identified patients with different mutation burdens. Our findings suggest the seven PDEIRGs identified in this study are valuable prognostic predictors in ccRCC patients. These genes could be used to investigate the developmental mechanisms of ccRCC and to design individualized treatments for ccRCC patients.

Abbreviations

RCC: renal cell carcinoma; ccRCC: clear cell renal cell carcinoma; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas; IRGs: immune-related genes; DEIRGs: differentially expressed immune-related genes; PDEIRGs: prognostic differentially expressed immune-related genes; TFs: transcription factors; HR: hazard ratio; CI: confidence interval; FDR: false-discovery rate; OS: overall survival; AUC: area under the curve; ROC: receiver operating characteristic.