Comprehensive analysis regarding the prognostic significance of downregulated ferroptosis-related gene AKR1C2 in gastric cancer and its underlying roles in immune response

Abstract

Ferroptosis is a cell death form that has been reported to be involved in the progression of gastric cancer (GC). However, the underlying mechanism of ferroptosis in GC still needs to be further explored. This study conducted a survey regarding the biological functions of ferroptosis-related gene AKR1C2 in GC. Multiple bioinformatic platforms were applied to indicate that the expression level of AKR1C2 was downregulated in GC tissues, which displayed good prognostic value. Clinical statistics proved that AKR1C2 expression was correlated with several tumor characteristics of GC patients, such as characteristics of N-stage tumor or residual tumor. Additionally, LinkedOmics was employed to explore the co-expression network and molecular pathways of AKR1C2 in GC. Eventually, AKR1C2 was found to be involved in several immune-related signatures, such as immunostimulators, immunoinhibitors, chemokines and chemokine receptors. To sum up, these results may provide a novel insight into the significance and biological functions of ferroptosis-related gene AKR1C2 in GC tumorigenesis.