A Prognostic Signature Consisting of Pyroptosis-Related Genes and SCAF11 for Predicting Immune Response in Breast Cancer

Ling Chu; Qiaoli Yi; Yuanliang Yan; Jinwu Peng; Zhilan Li; Feng Jiang; Qingchun He; Lingzi Ouyang; Shangjun Wu; Chencheng Fu; Ying Liu; Zhijie Xu

doi:10.3389/fmed.2022.882763

A Prognostic Signature Consisting of Pyroptosis-Related Genes and SCAF11 for Predicting Immune Response in Breast Cancer

Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 May 12:9:882763. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.882763. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ling Chu¹, Qiaoli Yi^{2

3}, Yuanliang Yan², Jinwu Peng^{4

5}, Zhilan Li⁵, Feng Jiang⁵, Qingchun He^{6

7}, Lingzi Ouyang⁵, Shangjun Wu⁵, Chencheng Fu⁵, Ying Liu⁵, Zhijie Xu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, The Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Pharmacy, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁴ Department of Pathology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁵ Department of Pathology, Xiangya Changde Hospital, Changde, China.
⁶ Department of Emergency, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁷ Department of Emergency, Xiangya Changde Hospital, Changde, China.

Abstract

Pyroptosis, characterized as an inflammasome-mediated cell death pathway, may be participated in tumorigenesis and progression. However, the underlying molecular function and mechanism of pyroptosis in BRCA remain unclear. In our study, we aimed to develop a prognostic signature in BRCA based on pyroptosis-associated genes. Data was downloaded from TCGA database, and then we screened 760 female BRCA samples and 104 normal breast tissues as the training set. Seven pyroptosis-related genes (CASP9, GPX4, IL18, NLRC4, SCAF11, TIRAP, and TNF) were identified as the pyroptosis-related prognostic model for BRCA using LASSO Cox regression. We subsequently tested the prognostic value of pyroptosis-associated gene signature in a validation set, GSE 20685. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated the credible predictive capacity of this pyroptosis-associated gene signature. The area under the curves were 0.806 at 3 years, 0.787 at 5 years, 0.775 at 8 years, and 0.793 at 10 years in the training set, and 0.824 at 5 years, 0.808 at 8 years, and 0.790 at 10 years in the validation set. Furthermore, there are currently few data on SCAF11 regulating pyroptosis. To clarify this issue, we performed integrative bioinformatics and experimental analysis. Knocking down SCAF11 possessed an anti-cancer effect in terms of inhibiting cell viability and suppressing colony-formation in in-vitro functional assays. Meanwhile, the biological functions of SCAF11 in BRCA were further validated with several algorithms, such as Xiantao tool, LinkedOmics, GEPIA2, and TISIDB. These findings indicated that the expression of SCAF11 was significantly correlated with diverse tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), including T central memory cell (Tcm), and type 2 T helper cell (Th2), etc. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that co-expression genes of SCAF11 primarily participated in inflammation and immune-related signaling pathways, such as oxidative phosphorylation, antimicrobial humoral response, and immunoglobulin complex. Moreover, SCAF11 expression was positively correlated with several immune checkpoints, including PD-L1, B7H3, and PDCD1LG2. Taken together, this study uncovered that pyroptosis-associated gene signature might be applied as an effective independent predictor in patients with BRCA. The pyroptosis-related gene SCAF11 might play potential roles in the regulation of immune microenvironment in BRCA.

Keywords: SCAF11; breast cancer; immune microenvironment; prognosis; pyroptosis.