A novel prognostic signature based on immune-related genes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) presents a great clinical challenge and has a poor prognosis, with immune-related genes playing a crucial role. We aimed to develop an immune-related prognostic signature for improving prognosis prediction in DLBCL. Samples from the GSE31312 dataset were randomly allocated to discovery and internal validation cohorts. Univariate Cox, random forest, LASSO regression and multivariate Cox analyses were utilized to develop a prognostic signature, which was verified in the internal validation cohort, entire validation cohort and external validation cohort (GSE10846). The tumor microenvironment was investigated using the CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE tools. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was further applied to analyze the entire GSE31312 cohort. We identified four immune-related genes (CD48, IL1RL, PSDM3, RXFP3) significantly associated with overall survival. Based on discovery and validation cohort analyses, this four-gene signature could classify patients into high- and low-risk groups, with significantly different prognoses. Activated memory CD4 T cells and activated dendritic cells were significantly decreased in the high-risk group, and these patients had lower immune scores. GSEA revealed enrichment of signaling pathways, such as T cell receptor, antigen receptor-mediated, antigen processing and presentation of peptide antigen via MHC class I, in the low-risk group. In conclusion, a robust signature based on four immune-related genes was successfully constructed for predicting prognosis in DLBCL patients.