Pyroptosis-related genes play a significant role in the prognosis of gastric cancer.

Abstract

BACKGROUNDPyroptosis 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.AIMTo evaluate the expression of pyroptosis-related genes in GC and its correlation with prognosis.METHODSWe 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.RESULTSSixty-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.CONCLUSIONPyroptosis-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.