Low-grade gliomas (LGG), which are malignant primary brain tumors, are more prevalent in young adults. Pyroptosis, an inflammatory form of programmed cell death, has been shown in recent years to be directly associated with tumor growth and tumor microenvironment (TME). However, the correlation between LGG and pyroptosis remained to be explored. In this research, we explored pyroptosis-related gene expression patterns and their prognostic significance based on transcriptome profiles and clinical data in LGG.
We identified 31 pyroptosis-related genes differentially expressed at the mRNA level between the data of LGG patients from TCGA and the data of normal brain tissues from GTEx. Univariate Cox regression analysis was used to screen 16 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) based on survival data. Next, the prognostic model was established using LASSO Cox regression, which divided LGG patients into high- and low- risk subgroups and showed an independent prognostic value for overall survival (OS) combined with clinical factors in the CGGA test cohort. Pyroptosis and immune cells were correlated through the CIBERSORT R package and the TIMER database.
Based on the analyses of 523 LGG and 1152 normal tissues, nine significant differential genes were identified. The AUC remained at about 0.74 when combined with the risk score and clinical factors. Enrichment analyses revealed that DEGs were mainly enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions, immune response and chemokine signaling pathways. Immune cell enrichment analysis demonstrated that scores for most immune cell types differed significantly between the high-and low-risk groups, and further infiltrating analysis showed obvious differences between these two risk subgroups.
Pyroptosis-related genes play a pivotal role in LGG and are associated with tumor immunity, which may be beneficial to the prognosis and immunotherapy of LGG.