Clinical and Translational Research
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Aug 26, 2022; 10(24): 8490-8505
Published online Aug 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i24.8490
Pyroptosis-related genes play a significant role in the prognosis of gastric cancer
Shi-Hao Guan, Xin-Yu Wang, Ping Shang, Qian-Cheng Du, Ming-Zhi Li, Xiao Xing, Bin Yan
Shi-Hao Guan, Ping Shang, Ming-Zhi Li, Xiao Xing, Bin Yan, Department of General Surgery, The Qingpu Branch of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Shanghai 201700, China
Xin-Yu Wang, Department of General Surgery, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200434, China
Qian-Cheng Du, Department of General Surgery, Zhongshan-xuhui Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200030, China
Author contributions: Guan SH is the author of the main idea, conceived and designed the study, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote and revised the manuscript; Yan B conceived and designed the study, collected and analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; Shang P and Du QC participated in drafting and revising the manuscript, and collected the data; Li MZ and Xing X revised the manuscript, and participated in the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data; Yan B and Wang XY revised the manuscript and coordinated the research team; and All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The data in the manuscript are all from public databases and do not involve the ethics of human and animal specimens.
Informed consent statement: The data in the manuscript are all from public databases.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bin Yan, PhD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Department of General Surgery, The Qingpu Branch of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, No. 1158 Gongyuan East Road, Shanghai 201700, China. yanbin202203@163.com
Received: March 21, 2022
Peer-review started: March 21, 2022
First decision: May 1, 2022
Revised: May 14, 2022
Accepted: July 16, 2022
Article in press: July 16, 2022
Published online: August 26, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Pyroptosis is an inflammatory form of programmed cell death, which has been shown to be related to the prognosis of many tumors. However, its role in gastric cancer (GC) is not fully understood.

AIM

To evaluate the expression of pyroptosis-related genes in GC and its correlation with prognosis.

METHODS

We constructed prognostic multigene markers of differentially expressed genes associated with pyroptosis by least absolute contraction and selection operator Cox regression. The risk model was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier curve, two-sided log-rank test and functional enrichment analysis.

RESULTS

Sixty-three pyroptosis-related genes were differentially expressed in tumor tissues and adjacent nontumor tissues. Based on these differentially expressed genes, 5 gene signature were constructed and all GC patients were classified into two risk groups. Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the overall survival (OS) of patients in the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. Multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that the risk score was an independent risk factor for OS. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis confirmed the predictive ability of the model. External validation indicated increased OS in the low-risk group. The immune function and immune cell scores of the high-risk group were generally higher than those of the low-risk group.

CONCLUSION

Pyroptosis-related genes play a significant role in tumor immune microenvironment. This novel model, which contains 5 pyroptosis-related genes, is an independent predicting factor for OS in GC patients, and may help to evaluate the prognosis of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer, Pyroptosis, Gene signature, Overall survival

Core Tip: This study aims to evaluate the expression of pyroptosis-related genes in gastric cancer (GC) and its correlation with prognosis. Based on 63 pyroptosis differentially expressed genes, 5 gene signature were constructed and all GC patients were classified into two risk groups. Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the overall survival (OS) of patients in the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. Multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that the risk score was an independent risk factor for OS. The immune function and immune cell scores of the high-risk group were generally higher than those of the low-risk group. Similar results were obtained in external validation.