Abstract
Renal cell carcinoma is one of the most common urological tumors. The role of programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) in renal cell carcinomas in predicting outcome of the patients is yet unclear. We analyzed the clinical and RNA-seq data of 522 kidney clear cell cancer, 259 kidney papillary cell carcinoma and 66 kidney chromophobe patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. In kidney clear cell cancer patients with high PD-L1 mRNA level and low PD-L1 mRNA level in tumors, the median overall survival periods were 45.0 and 37.1 months respectively (p=0.002). Multivariate Cox regression tests found that PD-L1 mRNA level in tumor was an independent predictor for overall survival status in kidney clear cell cancer patients (HR=0.7, 95% CI 0.5-0.9, p=0.007). However, no significant difference in overall survival status was found between high and low PD-L1 groups in kidney papillary cell carcinoma and kidney chromophobe cohorts. Gene-set enrichment analysis on the data from databases of TCGA and GSE53757 dataset in Gene Expression Omnibus databases showed that several pathways relating to immunological functions were activated in kidney clear cell cancers with high PD-L1 mRNA expression, and glycolysis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathways relating to tumor progression and metastasis were increased in kidney clear cell cancers with low PD-L1 mRNA level. In conclusion, higher PD-L1 mRNA level in kidney clear cell cancer tissues was associated with a favorable outcome due to the higher immunological responses in tumor tissues.
Highlights
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is estimated to be the ninth leading cause of cancers in the US [1]
Multivariate Cox regression tests found that programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) mRNA level in tumor was an independent predictor for overall survival status in kidney clear cell cancer patients (HR=0.7, 95% CI 0.5-0.9, p=0.007)
We aimed to investigate the role of PDL1 mRNA expression in tumors in predicting the outcome of RCC based on the analyses of the clinical and RNAseq data presented in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database
Summary
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is estimated to be the ninth leading cause of cancers in the US [1]. Three subtypes taking up 95% cases of RCC are clear cell RCC (KIRC), kidney papillary carcinoma (KIRP) and kidney chromophobe (KICH) [2]. The five-year overall survival rate of RCC is about 74%. The prognosis of RCC patients is closely related to patients’ age, tumor grade, and TNM stage [3]. Mutations in PBRM1, BAP1 and SETD2 are identified to be the molecular biomarkers for the prognosis of RCC [4, 5]. Molecular biomarkers may provide tumorigenic characteristics that are useful for the development of novel anti-RCC therapies [5]
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