Potential prognostic gene FCGR2A in cutaneous melanoma associated with the immune infiltration of neutrophils

Abstract

Abstract Objective To investigate the relationship between potential prognostic genes and immune infiltration in cutaneous melanoma, and to provide methods and ideas for the clinical treatment of cutaneous melanoma. Methods Consensus clustering analysis of cutaneous melanoma dataset was performed using the R software ConsensusClusterPlus package; immune score and checkpoint analyses of the grouped genes were performed using the TIMER algorithm in the immunedeconv package, and a potential immunotherapeutic response was predicted using the TIDE algorithm. The two groups of samples were analyzed using the R software Limma package’s differential expression analysis to obtain differential genes, and the intersection of differential genes and immune-related genes was determined to select overlapping partial genes. The STRING database was used to perform a PPI analysis of the intersecting genes to obtain the protein interaction network, and the MCODE plug-in allowed for the highest scoring module to be obtained. A LASSO analysis was used to determine the genes with prognostic features, and univariate cox and multivariate cox analyses revealed the independent prognostic genes associated with cutaneous melanoma. TIMER was used to analyze the correlation of independent prognostic genes with immune-related cells in relation to survival. Results The cutaneous melanoma dataset was divided into two subgroups, G1 and G2, with higher immune scores and checkpoint expression in G2 than in G1. DEG obtained 67 up-regulated genes and 772 down-regulated genes, with a total of 615 genes overlapping with immune-related genes. The largest module contained 82 genes after the PPI analysis, and the LASSO analysis yielded nine melanoma prognosis-associated genes. Univariate cox and multivariate cox analyses yielded FCGR2A as an independent prognostic factor for melanoma, and FCGR2A correlated strongly with neutrophils. Conclusion FCGR2A can be considered a potential prognostic key gene in cutaneous melanoma and is strongly correlated with neutrophil immune infiltration.