Constructing an immune- and ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature to predict the immune landscape of human bladder cancer

Background LncRNAs play a variety of roles in the tumor microenvironment and cancer immune responses. Determining the significance of bladder cancer (BLCA)-related genes to predict the prognostic and therapeutic response of BLCA is important. Methods IrlncRNA/ frlncRNA pairs were determined using univariate analysis. The signature was constructed based on this pairs. Finally, analysis and internal validation were performed from several aspects. Results We identified 60 immune- and ferroptosis-related lncRNA pairs, among which 12 were included in the Cox proportional hazards model. Patients in low-risk group survived for significantly longer. Survival and riskScore analyses showed that the low-risk group had a significantly better clinical outcome. ROC curve analysis showed that AUC of OS values were more than 0.75 in the training set and the whole cohort. As assessed using Cox analysis, the riskScore was an independent prognostic predictor in the training, testing set and the whole cohort. The areas under the multi-index ROC in the training set, the testing set, and the whole cohort were 0.777, 0.692, and 0.748, respectively. High-risk group was positively associated with most of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. High-risk Scores correlated positively with high expression of CD274, but not with PD-1. Low riskScores correlated positively with high expression levels of the genes ERBB2 and nectin-4. High-risk Score was associated with a lower IC50 value for Docetaxel, cisplatin, and Pazopanib, while there was an opposite result for metformin. Conclusions The signature constructed by pairing irlncRNAs and frlncRNAs showed a notable clinical predictive value.