Identification of Prognostic Immune-Related Genes in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma and Establishment of a Prognostic Nomogram: A Bioinformatic Study

Abstract

Background. The prognosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is extremely poor and has not been improved. Thus, an effective method to assess the prognosis of patients must be established to improve their survival rate. Method. This study investigated immune-related genes that could be used as potential therapeutic targets for PAAD. Level 3 gene expression data from the PAAD cohort and the relevant clinical information were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. For validation, other PAAD datasets (DSE62452) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The PAAD datasets from TCGA and GEO were used to screen immune-related genes through the Molecular Signatures Database using gene set enrichment analysis. Then, the overlapping immune-related genes of the two datasets were identified. Coexpression networks of the immune-related genes were constructed. Results. A signature of three immune-related genes (CKLF, ERAP2, and EREG) was identified in patients with PAAD. The signature could be used to divide the patients with PAAD into high- and low-risk groups based on their median risk score. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed to determine the independent prognostic factors of PAAD. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to assess the prediction accuracy of the prognostic signature. Last, a nomogram was established to assess the individualized prognosis prediction model based on the clinical characteristics and risk score of the TCGA PAAD dataset. The accuracy of the prognostic signature was further evaluated through functional evaluation and principal component analysis. Conclusions. The results indicated that the signature of three immune-related genes had excellent predictive value for PAAD. These findings might help improve personalized treatment and medical decisions.

A signature of 18 immune‐related gene pairs to predict the prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients

“…37 Moreover, the expression of CD1D, ERAP2, SSTR1, CXCL9, CXCL11, IL1A, EREG also certainly influenced the development of PC. [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46] Hence, these studies demonstrated the correlation between our IRGPs signature with the progression of PC.…”

Integrate analysis of the promote function of Cell division cycle-associated protein family to pancreatic adenocarcinoma

“…Chung et al [35] reported the prognostic value of serum fibrinogen to PAAD patients; serum fibrinogen expression was significantly higher in patients with distant metastasis, and the median OS was longer in patients with lower serum fibrinogen levels. Wu et al [36] identified three immune-related genes (CKLF, ERAP2, and EREG) and determined the prognostic signature of PAAD patients. Patients with high-risk scores were associated with a poor prognosis, with AUC values of 0.612 to 0.687.…”

Three Immune-Related Prognostic mRNAs as Therapeutic Targets for Pancreatic Cancer

“…Integrated analysis of relationships between immune-related genes and clinical outcomes of pancreatic cancer is critical to explore novel prognostic markers as well as therapeutic targets. For example, Wu et al found that three immune-related genes CKLF, ERAP2, and EREG showed distinct correlations with pancreatic cancer patients' survival ( 11 ). In this study, we identified three immune-related prognostic genes MET, OAS1, and OASL from the 21-gene signature.…”