5-Methylcytosine-Related Long Noncoding RNAs Are Potential Biomarkers to Predict Overall Survival and Regulate Tumor-Immune Environment in Patients with Bladder Cancer

Abstract

The role of 5-methylcytosine-related long noncoding RNAs (m5C-lncRNAs) in bladder cancer (BLCA) remains unclear. Here, we aim to study the prognostic value, gene expression characteristics, and correlation between the m5C-lncRNA risk model and the tumor microenvironment, immune infiltration, and tumor mutations in BLCA. After collecting BLCA patient RNA sequence transcriptome data, clinical information and mutation data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, 17 m5C-related lncRNAs independently correlated with OS were obtained by Lasso and multivariate Cox regression analysis, and a risk model was constructed. Univariate Cox, multivariate Cox regression analysis, and the C-index curve proved that the risk model was a significant independent prognostic indicator for patients with BLCA. ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT indicated that the higher the number of immune cells and stromal cells in TME, the higher the prognostic risk. We found that in the low-risk group, the expression levels of immune cells that predicted a good prognosis were higher, including plasma cells, regulatory T cells, and CD 8 T cells. There is a negative correlation between TMB and risk score. The TMB of the low-risk group is significantly higher than that of the high-risk group. In conclusion, the m5C-related risk model is crucial to predict the prognosis of patients with BLCA.