The ferroptosis signature predicts the prognosis and immune microenvironment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a cancer with a high metastatic rate and poor prognosis. Growing studies suggest that ferroptosis take part in the development of tumours. At the same time, the connection between ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) and the prognosis of NPC remains unclear. In this study, we explored the dysregulated FRGs between normal control and tumour samples of NPC. Firstly, 14 of 36 differentially expressed FRGs were identified in NPC tissues compared to normal tissues, among which ABCC1, GLS2, CS and HMGCR were associated with poor prognosis for patients. The four ferroptosis genes were used for consensus cluster analysis and two risk-related FRGs (ABCC1 and GLS2) were used in a risk model. The ROC curve revealed the good predictive performance of this risk signature. Multivariate analysis revealed that risk score and intratumoral TILs were independent risk factors linked to prognosis. Additionally, our results suggested that the risk signature was attached to the immune microenvironment. Moreover, the NPC patients with high risk were sensitive to chemotherapeutic drugs including axitinib, docetaxel, embelin, epothilone.B, parthenolide, thapsigargin, tipifarnib, vinorelbine. Finally, the expression of ABCC1 and GLS2 was validated in NPC tissues using immunohistochemistry. Together, these results revealed ferroptosis may be a potential biomarker in NPC and representing a promising future direction in prognosis and therapeutic strategy for the treatment of NPC.