Department of Urology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100000, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 15;23(24):15970. doi: 10.3390/ijms232415970.
Inflammatory cancer-associated fibroblasts (iCAFs) are closely related to progression, anticancer therapeutic resistance, and poor prognosis of bladder cancer (BCa). However, the functional role of iCAFs in BCa has been poorly studied. In our study, two BCa scRNA-seq datasets (GSE130001 and GSE146137) were obtained and integrated by the Seurat pipeline. Based on reported markers (COL1A1 and PDGFRA), iCAFs were identified and the related signature of 278 markers was developed. Following unsupervised consensus clustering, two molecular subtypes of TCGA-BLCA were identified and characterized by distinct dysregulated cancer hallmarks, immunological tumor microenvironments, prognoses, responses to chemotherapy/immunotherapy, and stemness. Subsequently, the robustness of the signature-based clustering, in terms of prognosis and therapeutic response prediction, was validated in a GEO-meta cohort with seven independent GEO datasets of 519 BCa patients, and three immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-treated cohorts. Considering the heterogeneity, re-clustering of iCAFs was performed and a subpopulation, named "LOXL2+ iCAFs", was identified. Co-culture CM derived from LOXL2 overexpression/silencing CAFs with T24 cells revealed that overexpression of LOXL2 in CAFs promoted while silencing LOXL2 inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of T24 cells through IL32. Moreover, the positive correlation between LOXL2 and CD206, an M2 macrophage polarization marker, has been observed and validated. Collectively, integrated single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing analyses revealed an iCAF-related signature that can predict prognosis and response to immunotherapy for BCa. Additionally, the hub gene LOXL2 may serve as a promising target for BCa treatment.
炎性癌症相关成纤维细胞(iCAFs)与膀胱癌(BCa)的进展、抗癌治疗耐药性和不良预后密切相关。然而,iCAFs 在 BCa 中的功能作用尚未得到充分研究。在我们的研究中,我们获得了两个 BCa scRNA-seq 数据集(GSE130001 和 GSE146137),并通过 Seurat 管道进行了整合。基于报道的标志物(COL1A1 和 PDGFRA),我们鉴定了 iCAFs,并开发了相关的 278 个标志物特征。通过无监督共识聚类,鉴定了两个 TCGA-BLCA 的分子亚型,并通过独特的失调的癌症特征、免疫肿瘤微环境、预后、对化疗/免疫治疗的反应以及干性来进行特征描述。随后,我们在一个包含 519 名 BCa 患者的七个独立 GEO 数据集的 GEO-meta 队列以及三个免疫检查点抑制剂(ICI)治疗队列中验证了基于签名的聚类在预后和治疗反应预测方面的稳健性。考虑到异质性,我们对 iCAFs 进行了重新聚类,并鉴定出一个亚群,命名为“LOXL2+ iCAFs”。通过共培养 CAFs 来源的 CM,CAFs 中 LOXL2 的过表达/沉默与 T24 细胞共培养,结果表明 CAFs 中 LOXL2 的过表达促进了 T24 细胞的增殖、迁移和侵袭,而沉默 LOXL2 则抑制了 T24 细胞的增殖、迁移和侵袭。此外,还观察到并验证了 LOXL2 与 CD206(M2 巨噬细胞极化标志物)之间的正相关关系。总之,整合单细胞和批量 RNA 测序分析揭示了一个与 iCAFs 相关的特征,该特征可以预测 BCa 的预后和对免疫治疗的反应。此外,枢纽基因 LOXL2 可能成为治疗 BCa 的一个有前途的靶点。
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