Adipocytes impact on gastric cancer progression: Prognostic insights and molecular features

Abstract

BACKGROUND Adipocytes, especially adipocytes within tumor tissue known as cancer-associated adipocytes, have been increasingly recognized for their pivotal role in the tumor microenvironment of gastric cancer (GC). Their influence on tumor progression and patient prognosis has sparked significant interest in recent research. The main objectives of this study were to investigate adipocyte infiltration, assess its correlation with clinical pathological features, develop a prognostic prediction model based on independent prognostic factors, evaluate the impact of adipocytes on immune cell infiltration and tumor invasiveness in GC, and identify and validate genes associated with high adipocyte expression, exploring their potential diagnostic and prognostic value. AIM To explore the relationship between increased adipocytes within tumor tissue and prognosis in GC patients as well as the associated mechanisms and potential biomarkers, using public databases and clinical data. METHODS Using mRNA microarray datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and clinical samples from Jiangsu Provincial Hospital, survival and regression analyses were conducted to determine the relevant prognostic factors in GC. Feature gene selection was performed using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and support vector machine recursive feature elimination algorithms, followed by differential gene expression analysis, gene ontology, pathway analysis, and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. Immune cell infiltration was analyzed using the CIBERSORT algorithm. RESULTS Tumor adipocyte infiltration correlated with poor prognosis in GC, leading to the development of a highly accurate and discriminative prognostic prediction model. Key genes, ADH1B , SFRP1 , PLAC9 , and FABP4 , were identified as associated with high adipocyte expression in GC. The diagnostic and prognostic potential of these identified genes was validated using independent datasets. Downregulation of immune cells was observed in GC with high adipocyte expression. CONCLUSION GC with high intratumoral adipocyte expression demonstrated aggressive tumor biology and a poorer prognosis. The genes ADH1B , SFRP1 , PLAC9 , and FABP4 have been identified as holding diagnostic and prognostic significance in GC. These findings strongly support the use of adipocyte expression as a valuable indicator of tumor invasiveness and anticipated patient outcomes in GC.