Identification and Validation of a Prognostic Signature for Prostate Cancer Based on Ferroptosis-Related Genes

Abstract

Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of selective cell death, is involved in the development of many cancers. However, ferroptosis related genes (FRGs) in prostate cancer (PCa) are not been well studied. In this study, we collected the mRNA expression profiles and clinical information of PCa patients from TCGA and MSKCC databases. The univariate, LASSO, and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to construct a prognostic signature. Seven FRGs, <i>AKR1C3</i>, <i>ALOXE3</i>, <i>ATP5MC3</i>, <i>CARS1</i>, <i>MT1G</i>, <i>PTGS2</i>, and <i>TFRC</i>, were included to establish a risk model, which was validated in the MSKCC dataset. The results showed that the high-risk group was apparently correlated with copy number alteration load, tumor burden mutation, immune cell infiltration, mRNAsi, immunotherapy, and bicalutamide response. Moreover, we found that <i>TFRC</i> overexpression induced the proliferation and invasion of PCa cell lines <i>in vitro</i>. These results demonstrate that this risk model can accurately predict prognosis, suggesting that FRGs are promising prognostic biomarkers and potential drug targets in PCa patients.