Pyroptosis-Related lncRNAs for Predicting the Prognosis and Identifying Immune Microenvironment Infiltration in Breast Cancer Lung Metastasis

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Mar 4:10:821727. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.821727. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the second leading cause of death among women and is highly heterogeneous. Three pyroptosis (PR) subtypes were identified in patients with BC from the Cancer Genome Atlas Database (TCGA) cohorts using 20 PR-related regulators, which illustrate a strong association between BC prognosis and PR. Lung metastasis commonly occurs in the advanced stages of BC, resulting in a poor quality of life. Eight differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs were identified using LASSO-Cox analysis between PR-related and BC lung metastasis. Moreover, a BRCA risk-score (RS) model was established using multivariate Cox regression, which correlated with prognosis in TCGA-BRCA. Clinical characteristics, tumor mutation burden, and tumor immune cell infiltration were extensively investigated between high- and low-RS groups. Similarly, a lower RS implied longer overall survival, greater inflammatory cell infiltration, and better immunotherapeutic response to PD-1 blockers. Our findings provide a foundation for future studies targeting PR and confirme that RS could predict the prognosis of patients with BC.

Keywords: breast cancer; immunotherapy; lncRNA; prognosis; pyroptosis.