Identification Of Gene Signature For Renal Cell Carcinoma-Associated Fibroblasts Mediating Cancer Progression And Affecting Prognosis
Abstract Background: Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are most abundant in stroma and are critically involved in cancer progression. However, the specific signature of CAFs and related clinicopathological parameters in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remain unclear. Methods: In this work, methods using recognized gene signatures were employed to roughly assess the infiltration level of the stroma and CAFs in RCC based on the data in The Cancer Genome Atlas. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to cluster transcriptomes and correlate with CAFs to identify specific markers. A comparison of fibroblast versus urothelial carcinoma cell lines and correlation with previously reported CAF markers were performed to demonstrate the specific expressed of the gene signature. The gene signature was used to compare fibroblast infiltration of each sample through single sample gene set enrichment analysis, and the clinical significance of fibroblasts was analyzed via Cox risk assessment and the chi-square test. Finally, we used validation data to verify the clinical significance of the fibroblast gene signature in RCC. Results: Roughly calculated tumor matrix and CAF levels were significantly higher in kidney cancer than in normal tissues. More than 85% of fibroblast-specific markers identified by WGCNA were consistent with markers obtained via single-cell sequencing. These markers were more highly expressed in fibroblast cell lines and were significantly correlated with canonical CAFs makers. Data validation also showed that CAFs were significant correlation with survival and pathological grade. Conclusions: In summary, our findings indicate that the gene signature potentially serves as a biomarker of CAFs in RCC and that infiltration of fibroblasts in RCC is an independent prognostic factor associated with pathological grade and stage of tumor. The ability to recognize specific CAF markers using WGCNA is comparable to single-cell sequencing.