Establishment of Golgi apparatus-related genes signature to predict the prognosis and immunotherapy response in gastric cancer patients

Abstract

The Golgi apparatus plays a crucial role in intracellular protein transportation, processing, and sorting. Dysfunctions of the Golgi apparatus have been implicated in tumorigenesis and drug resistance. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic and treatment response assessment value of Golgi apparatus-related gene (GARGs) features in gastric cancer patients. Transcriptome data and clinical information of gastric cancer patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus databases. Cox regression analysis was employed to assess the prognostic significance of GARGs and construct risk features. The immune landscape, drug sensitivity, immune therapy response, gene expression patterns, and somatic mutation characteristics were analyzed between different risk groups. A nomogram model for predicting gastric cancer prognosis was developed and evaluated. Among 1643 GARGs examined, 365 showed significant associations with gastric cancer prognosis. Five independent prognostic GARGs (NGF, ABCG1, CHAC1, GBA2, PCSK7) were selected to construct risk features for gastric cancer patients. These risk features effectively stratified patients into high-risk and low-risk groups, with the former exhibiting worse prognosis than the latter. Patients in the high-risk group displayed higher levels of immune cell infiltration, while the expression levels of NGF, CHAC1, GBA2, PCSK7 were significantly correlated with immune cell infiltration. Notably, the low-risk group exhibited higher sensitivity to epothilone.B, metformin, and tipifarnib compared to the high-risk group. Moreover, patients in the low-risk group demonstrated greater responsiveness to immune therapy than those in the high-risk group. In terms of biological processes and KEGG pathways related to immunity regulation, significant suppression was observed in the high-risk group compared to the low-risk group; meanwhile cell cycle pathways exhibited significant activation in the high-risk group. Furthermore, the low-risk group exhibited a higher tumor mutation burden compared to the high-risk group. The risk features derived from GARGs, in conjunction with age, were identified as independent risk factors for gastric cancer. The nomogram incorporating these factors demonstrated improved performance in predicting gastric cancer prognosis. Our study established risk features derived from GARGs that hold potential clinical utility in prognostic assessment and immune therapy response evaluation of gastric cancer patients.