Overexpressed pseudogene MT1L associated with tumor immune infiltrates and indicates a worse prognosis in BLCA.

BACKGROUND

BLCA is a common cancer worldwide, and it is both aggressive and fatal. Immunotherapy (ICT) has achieved an excellent curative effect in BLCA; however, only some BLCA patients can benefit from ICT. MT1L is a pseudogene, and a previous study suggested that MT1L can be used as an indicator of prognosis in colorectal cancer. However, the role of MT1L in BLCA has not yet been determined.

METHODS

Data were collected from TCGA, and logistic regression, Kaplan-Meier plotter, and multivariate Cox analysis were performed to demonstrate the correlation between the pseudogene MT1L and the prognosis of BLCA. To identify the association of MT1L with tumor-infiltrating immune cells, TIMER and TISIDB were utilized. Additionally, GSEA was performed to elucidate the potential biological function.

RESULTS

The expression of MT1L was decreased in BLCA. Additionally, MT1L was positively correlated with immune cells, such as Tregs (ρ = 0.708) and MDSCs (ρ = 0.664). We also confirmed that MT1L is related to typical markers of immune cells, such as PD-1 and CTLA-4. In addition, a high MT1L expression level was associated with the advanced T and N and high grade in BLCA. Increased expression of MT1L was significantly associated with shorter OS times of BLCA patients (p < 0.05). Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that MT1L expression could be an independent prognostic factor in BLCA.

CONCLUSION

Collectively, our findings demonstrated that the pseudogene MT1L regulates the immune microenvironment, correlates with poor survival, and is an independent prognostic biomarker in BLCA.