Identifying as a pivotal biomarker for predicting outcomes and immunotherapy efficacy in pan-renal cell carcinoma.

Background: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a heterogeneous disease. Identifying effective biomarkers is crucial for improving prognostic accuracy and therapy outcomes. This study investigates cell division cycle-associated 3 () as a novel biomarker for prognostic assessment and immunotherapy response in RCC.

Methods: This study analyzed multi-omics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) for kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma (KIRP), and kidney chromophobe (KICH) subtypes to evaluate expression and its clinical implications. Functional enrichment and immune infiltration analyses were performed using bioinformatics tools gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and xCell. The prognostic value of was assessed through Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was employed to confirm expression at the protein level in RCC samples.

Results: Higher expression correlated with poor survival outcomes and reduced response to programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) blockade therapies. Statistical analysis indicated that was an independent prognostic factor for poor survival in RCC. was consistently overexpressed in RCC tissues compared to normal tissues and was associated with adverse clinical features, including high Th2 cell infiltration and suppression of immune pathways.

Conclusions: is a promising biomarker for RCC, offering insights into the tumor's prognosis and potential response to immunotherapy. The strong association between expression and poor therapeutic outcomes suggests that could be targeted in future therapeutic strategies.