Construction and validation of a prognostic model of RNA binding proteins in clear cell renal carcinoma

The dysfunction of RNA binding proteins (RBPs) is associated with various inflammation and cancer. The occurrence and progression of tumors are closely related to the abnormal expression of RBPs. There are few studies on RBPs in clear cell renal carcinoma (ccRCC), which allows us to explore the role of RBPs in ccRCC.

We obtained the gene expression data and clinical data of ccRCC from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and extracted all the information of RBPs. We performed differential expression analysis of RBPs. Risk model were constructed based on the differentially expressed RBPs (DERBPs). The expression levels of model markers were examined by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and analyzed for model-clinical relevance. Finally, we mapped the model's nomograms to predict the 1, 3 and 5-year survival rates for ccRCC patients.

The results showed that the five-year survival rate for the high-risk group was 40.2% (95% CI = 0.313 ~ 0.518), while the five-year survival rate for the low-risk group was 84.3% (95% CI = 0.767 ~ 0.926). The ROC curves (AUC = 0.748) also showed that our model had stable predictive power. Further RT-qPCR results were in accordance with our analysis (p < 0.05). The results of the independent prognostic analysis showed that the model could be an independent prognostic factor for ccRCC. The results of the correlation analysis also demonstrated the good predictive ability of the model.

In summary, the 4-RBPs (EZH2, RPL22L1, RNASE2, U2AF1L4) risk model could be used as a prognostic indicator of ccRCC. Our study provides a possibility for predicting the survival of ccRCC.