Identification of RNA-binding protein RBMS3 as a potential biomarker for immunotherapy in bladder cancer

RNA-binding protein (RBP) plays pivotal roles in the malignant progression of cancer by regulating gene expression. In this paper, we aimed to develop RBP-based prognostic signature and identify critical hub RBPs in bladder cancer (BLCA). Firstly, a risk model based on differentially expressed RBP gens (DERBPs) between normal and tumor tissues was successfully established, which can predict the tumor stromal score and drug sensitivity. Then two another RBP risk models based on miRNA-correlated RBPs or lncRNA-correlated RBPs were also established, and RBMS3 was identified as the overlapping gene in the three models. Data from multiple bioinformatics databases revealed that RBMS3 was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS), and was associated with an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) in BLCA. Further, Single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) data and the human protein altas (HPA) database showed that RBMS3 expression (both mRNA and protein) were up-regulated in BLCA tumor and tumor stromal cells. Finally, RBMS3 was shown to be associated with worse response to BLCA immunotherapy. Overall, RBMS3 is a key prognostic RBP with TME remodeling function and may serve as a target for BLCA immunotherapy.