A Novel Ferroptosis-Related Gene Signature Robustly Predicts Clinical Prognosis And Tumor Immunity in Patients With Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to construct a ferroptosis-related gene signature to predict clinical prognosis and tumor immunity in patients with kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC).Methods: The mRNA expression profiles and corresponding clinical data of KIRC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which were randomly divided into training (398 patients) and validation set (132 patients). The iron death related (IDR) prediction model was constructed based on training set and 60 ferroptosis-related genes from previous literatures, followed by prognostic performance evaluation and verification using the validation set. Moreover, functional enrichment, immune cell infiltration, metagene clusters correlation, and TIDE scoring analyses were performed. Results: In total, 23 ferroptosis-related genes were significantly associated with overall survival (OS). The IDR prediction model (a 10-gene signature) was then constructed to stratify patients into two risk groups. The OS of KIRC patients with high-risk scores was significantly shorter than those with low-risk scores. Moreover, the risk score was confirmed as an independent prognostic predictor for OS. The positive and negative correlated genes with this model were significantly enriched in p53 signaling pathway, and cGMP-PKG signaling pathway. The patients in the high-risk group had higher ratios of plasma cells, T cells CD8, and T cells regulatory Tregs. Furthermore, IgG, HCK, LCK, and Interferson metagenes were significantly correlated with risk score. By TIDE score analysis, patients in the high-risk group could benefit from immunotherapy.Conclusions: The identified ferroptosis-related gene signature is significantly correlated with clinical prognosis and immune immunity in KIRC patients.