Identification of Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 1 As a Potential Bladder Tumor Marker

TL;DR

This study identifies HSD17B1 as a potential biomarker for bladder cancer prognosis and treatment prediction.

Contribution

The study is the first to explore HSD17B1 as a prognostic biomarker for bladder cancer.

Findings

HSD17B1 expression is significantly higher in bladder cancer samples compared to normal tissue.

Higher HSD17B1 mRNA levels correlate with reduced overall survival in bladder cancer patients.

HSD17B1 is associated with immune cell infiltration and tumor-associated biomarker genes.

Abstract

The HSD17B family has been implicated in the prognosis and treatment prediction of various malignancies; however, its association with BLCA remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of HSD17B1, as a prognostic biomarker, for the survival of patients with BLCA and to determine its effectiveness as a supplemental biomarker for BLCA.

A series of bioinformatics techniques were applied to investigate the expression of HSD17B1 in different types of cancer and its potential association with the prognosis of BLCA patients using diverse databases. The UALCAN, Human Protein Atlas, cBioPortal, Metascape, GEPIA, MethSurv, and TIMER were employed to analyze expression differences, mutation status, enrichment analysis, overall survival, methylation, and immune-infiltrating cells. The qRT-PCR was implemented to detect the mRNA expression levels of HSD17B1 in vitro.

Elevated mRNA and protein levels of HSD17B1, surpassing normal levels, were observed in BLCA samples. In addition, the BLCA patients with higher mRNA expression level of HSD17B1 significantly reduced the OS. Also, several immune infiltrating cells, including mast cell resting CIBERSORT-ABS, have been identified as tumor-associated biomarker genes, with the potential to significantly influence the immunological environment. Finally, qRT-PCR analysis revealed a significant upregulation of HSD17B1 mRNA expression level in the cancer cells compared to the human 293T cells, which was consistent with the bioinformatics data.

There is a strong correlation between the elevated HSD17B1 expression and positive prognosis in patients with BLCA. Therefore, HSD17B1 can be used as a prognostic biomarker in these patients.

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