ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mol. Biosci.
Sec. Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2025.1608519
Comprehensive Analysis of Phagocytosis Regulatory Genes in Bladder Cancer: Implications for Prognosis and Immunotherapy
Provisionally accepted
- Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background:Bladder cancer is a common malignant tumor of the urinary system. Its incidence and mortality rates are on the rise, and the existing treatment methodsare difficult to meet the prognostic needs of patients. Phagocytosis plays a crucial rolein tumor immune surveillance and the regulation of the tumor microenvironment. Phagocytosis regulatory genes (PRGs) are involved in regulating the immuneresponse against tumor cells, and in-depth research on them in bladder cancer isextremely urgent. Methods:Multi-omics data from the TCGA and GEO databases were integrated, and strict data preprocessing was carried out. A variety of algorithms and analysistechniques, such as Kaplan-Meier analysis, Cox regression analysis, andConsensusClusterPlus clustering analysis, were used to identify PRGs related to theprognosis of bladder cancer patients, and functional analysis and clustering analysiswere conducted in depth. A prognostic model was constructed and verified, and therisk score was calculated. At the same time, the relationships between the model andthe tumor microenvironment (TME), immune infiltration, mutation, and drugsensitivity were comprehensively analyzed. Results:It was found that 37 genes had a strong positive correlation with themacrophage score, and 200 PRGs were significantly enriched in immune-relatedbiological processes and pathways. The patients were divided into PRG cluster A andPRG cluster B. Patients in PRG cluster A had a worse survival outcome and wereclosely related to higher tumor grades, stages, and the infiltration of specific immunecells. A total of 1,696 differentially expressed genes and two necroptosis-related genesubtypes were identified. The constructed prognostic model showed excellentpredictive performance, and the areas under the curves of survival rates at differenttimes were all high in both the training set and the test set. Finally, the drug sensitivityanalysis showed that high-risk patients benefited more from immunotherapy andchemotherapy drugs. Conclusion:This study has greatly deepened the understanding of the potentialmolecular mechanisms of bladder cancer, provided new insights and valuablepotential therapeutic targets for the precision treatment of bladder cancer, and isexpected to promote the innovation and optimization of bladder cancer treatmentstrategies.
Keywords: BLCA, Phagocytosis regulatory genes, Immune infiltration, prognostic, Therapeutic response
Received: 09 Apr 2025; Accepted: 12 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Yao, Yu, Wu, Fan and Tian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: JunQiang Tian, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.