A Novel Pyroptosis-Related Gene Signature for Predicting the Prognosis and the Associated Immune Infiltration in Colon Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

BackgroundPyroptosis has been demonstrated to be an inflammatory form of programmed cell death recently. However, the expression of pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs) in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) and their correlations with prognosis remain unclear.MethodsData of COAD patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to screen differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Univariate Cox regression analysis and the LASSO Cox regression analysis were applied to construct a gene signature. All COAD patients in TCGA cohort were separated into low-risk subgroup or high-risk subgroup via the risk score. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were adopted to assess its prognostic efficiency. COAD data from the GSE17537 datasets was used for validation. A prognostic nomogram was established to predict individual survival. The correlation between PRGs and immune cell infiltration in COAD was verified based on TIMER database. CIBERSORT analysis was utilized on risk subgroup as defined by model. The protein and mRNA expression level of PRGs were verified by HPA database and qPCR.ResultsA total of 51 differentially expressed PRGs were identified in TCGA cohort. Through univariate Cox regression analysis and LASSO Cox regression analysis, a prognostic model containing 7 PRGs was constructed. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis indicated that patients in the low-risk subgroup exhibited better prognosis compared to those in the high-risk subgroup. Additionally, the area under the curve (AUC) of ROC is 0.60, 0.63, and 0.73 for 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival in TCGA cohort and 0.63, 0.65, and 0.64 in validation set. TIMER database showed a strong correlation between 7 PRGs and tumor microenvironment in COAD. Moreover, CIBERSORT showed significant differences in the infiltration of plasma cells, M0 macrophages, resting dendritic cells, and eosinophils between low-risk subgroup and high-risk subgroup. HPA database showed that protein expression level of SDHB, GZMA, BTK, EEF2K, and NR1H2 was higher in normal tissues. And the transcriptional level of CASP5, BTK, SDHB, GZMA, and RIPK3 was high in normal tissues.ConclusionsOur study identified a novel PRGs signature that could be used to predict the prognosis of COAD patients, which might provide a new therapeutic target for the treatment of COAD patients.

A pyroptosis-related gene signature that predicts immune infiltration and prognosis in colon cancer

“…Among them, Chen et al. ( 68 ) performed the analysis based on the samples in TCGA, and the GEO data set was the validation set. Compared to this study, our research differs significantly in three main aspects.…”

“…Pyroptosis, a type of programmed cell death characterized by an inflammatory response, can significantly influence the TIME and thus regulate the development and prognosis of malignancy (67). Although some relevant studies have been reported (12,43,68), the exploration of prognostic models based on PRGs in CC remains necessary and valuable. Among them, Chen et al (68) performed the analysis based on the samples in TCGA, and the GEO data set was the validation set.…”

“…Although some relevant studies have been reported (12,43,68), the exploration of prognostic models based on PRGs in CC remains necessary and valuable. Among them, Chen et al (68) performed the analysis based on the samples in TCGA, and the GEO data set was the validation set. Compared to this study, our research differs significantly in three main aspects.…”

Comprehensive analysis of the prognosis, tumor microenvironment, and immunotherapy response of SDHs in colon adenocarcinoma

“…A report indicated that succinate dehydrogenases (SDHs) are closely related to mitochondria and are primarily involved in the occurrence and progression of tumors ( 12 , 13 ). Moreover, succinate, which accumulates as a result of SDH inhibition, inhibits HIF-α prolyl hydroxylases in the cytosol, stabilizes and activates Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) ( 14 ).…”