Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the leading histological subtype of lung cancer worldwide, causing high annual mortality. Tsvetkov et al. recently found a new form of regulated cell death, termed cuproptosis. The prognostic value of cuproptosis-related gene signature in LUAD remains uncertain.
Methods: A training cohort is identified by the TCGA-LUAD dataset, whereas validation cohorts one and two are identified by GSE72094 and GSE68465, respectively. GeneCard and GSEA were used to extract genes related to cuproptosis. Cox regression, Kaplan-Meier regression, and LASSO regression were used to construct a gene signature. The model's applicability was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier estimators, Cox models, ROC, and tAUC across two independent validation cohorts. We examined the model's connections with other forms of regulated cell death. The immunotherapy ability of the signature was demonstrated by applying TMB, immune relevant signatures, and TIDE. The GSEA and immune infiltration analysis offer a better understanding of how the signature functions and the role of immune cells in its prognostic power.
Results: A ten-gene signature was built and demonstrated owning prognostic power by being applied to the validation cohorts. The GSEA uncovered that the unfolded protein response, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and MYC were highly related to the gene signature. The ten-gene signature is closely related to related genes of apoptosis, necroptosis, pyroptosis, and ferroptosis. Our signature may have utility in predicting immunotherapy efficacy in LUADs. Mast cells were identified as key players that support the predicting capacity of the ten-gene signature through the immune infiltrating analysis.
Conclusions: The novel ten-gene signature associated with apoptosis in cuproptosis that we obtained may contribute to improved LUAD management strategies and the ability to predict response to LUAD immunotherapy. It is suggested that mast cell infiltration might be related to the prognostic power of this signature.
Keywords: Lung adenocarcinoma; copper; cuproptosis; gene signature; tumor microenvironment.
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