CALD1, CNN1, and TAGLN identified as potential prognostic molecular markers of bladder cancer by bioinformatics analysis

Background: Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most common malignant neoplasms in the genitourinary tract. We employed the GSE13507 data set from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database in order to identify key genes related to tumorigenesis, progression, and prognosis in BC patients. Methods: The data set used in this study included 10 normal bladder mucosae tissue samples and 165 primary BC tissue samples. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the 2 types of samples were identified by GEO2R. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed using the online website DAVID. The online website STRING was used to construct a protein-protein interaction network. Moreover, the plugins in MCODE and cytoHubba in Cytoscape were employed to find the hub genes and modules in these DEGs. Results: We identified 154 DEGs comprising 135 downregulated genes and 19 upregulated genes. The GO enrichment results were mainly related to the contractile fiber part, extracellular region part, actin cytoskeleton, and extracellular region. The KEGG pathway enrichment results mainly comprised type I diabetes mellitus, asthma, systemic lupus erythematosus, and allograft rejection. A module was identified from the protein-protein interaction network. In total, 15 hub genes were selected and 3 of them comprising CALD1, CNN1, and TAGLN were associated with both overall survival and disease-free survival. Conclusion: CALD1, CNN1, and TAGLN may be potential biomarkers for diagnosis as well as therapeutic targets in BC patients.