Abstract
Epithelial membrane protein 1 (EMP1) is a key gene that regulates cell proliferation and metastatic capability in various types of cancer, and serves an important role in tumor-immune interactions. However, the association between EMP1 and clinical prognosis, as well as the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA) remains unclear. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between EMP1 expression and tumor immune cell infiltration in BLCA. In the present study, EMP1 expression in BLCA was analyzed using the Oncomine database, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER). The effects of EMP1 on clinical prognosis were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier plotter and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis. The correlations between EMP1, cancer immune infiltrates and lymphocyte abundance were determined using the TIMER and Tumor immune system interaction database. In addition, correlations between EMP1 expression and gene markers in immune infiltrates were analyzed using cBioportal. The results demonstrated that, compared with adjacent normal tissues, EMP1 was downregulated in BLCA tissues. High expression of EMP1 was significantly associated with poor overall survival (OS) in BLCA cases obtained from TCGA. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that EMP1 was an independent predictor of OS in patients with BLCA. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that EMP1 was associated with cancer-related pathways and was positively correlated with the levels of infiltrating CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells in BLCA. Further analysis demonstrated that EMP1 was significantly associated with the enrichment of multiple types of lymphocyte. EMP1 expression exhibited a strong correlation with a range of immune markers in BLCA. In conclusion, the results of the present study demonstrated that EMP1 was associated with a poor prognosis in patients with BLCA, and that the levels of immune infiltration and multiple immunomarker groups were associated with EMP1 expression. These results suggested that EMP1 may be used as a predictive biomarker to determine the prognosis and immune infiltration in BLCA.