Background: Collagen is the main component of Extracellular matrix (ECM) and might play an important role in tumor microenvironment. However, the relationship between collagen and clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) still not fully clarified. Hence, we aimed to establish a collagen-related signature to predict the prognosis and estimate the tumor immune microenvironment in ccRCC patients.
Results: In this study, we established a five collagen-related gene signature to estimate the immune microenvironment and predict the prognosis of ccRCC patients. Patients with high-risk score were often correlated with unfavorable overall survival (OS) and immunosuppressive microenvironment. In addition, the collagen-related genetic signature was highly correlated with clinical pathological features and can be considered as independent prognostic factors in ccRCC patients. Besides, GSEA results also show that patients with high-risk grade tend to be associated with epithelial-mesenchymal junctions (EMT) and immune responses.
Conclusion: In this study, we developed a collagen-related gene signature, which might possess the potential to predict the prognosis and immune microenvironment of ccRCC patients and function as an independent prognostic factor in ccRCC.