Identification of Pyroptosis-Related Gene Signatures and Construction of the Risk Model to Predict BCR in Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in men. Pyroptosis is related to tumor immune infiltration and tumor microenvironment (TME) and has been confirmed to be related to the progression of a variety of tumors. However, the relationship between prostate cancer and pyroptosis, as well as TME and tumor immune infiltration, has not been discussed yet. We obtained and combined the RNA-seq data of prostate cancer from TCGA and GEO databases, analyzed the differential expression of pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs), and divided them into two groups according to the PRG expression level. The relationship between pyroptosis subtypes and the TME of prostate cancer was further verified, and the differential expression genes (DEGs) in the two subtypes were identified. The relationship between the DEGs and clinicopathology was explored and KEGG and GO enrichment analysis was conducted; it was found that most DEGs were enriched in immune-related pathways. Then, we randomly divided datasets into training and testing sets, performed the LASSO and multicox progression analysis, selected eight genes as prognostic signatures and used the eight genes, calculated the risk score, and then separated the entire cohort into high- and low-risk groups. The prognosis between two groups and the 1-, 3-, and 5-year ROC curves of biochemical relapse (BCR) were verified in training, testing, and the entire cohort, respectively. The TME, CSC index, mutation, and drug susceptibility were also discussed.