Identification of Novel Prognostic Risk Signature of Breast Cancer Based on Ferroptosis-Related Genes
Abstract Ferroptosis is a non-small molecule-induced form of tumor cell apoptosis, which has been shown to regulate the biological behavior of tumors. Therefore, genes controlling ferroptosis may be promising candidate biomarkers for tumor therapy. In this study, we investigate the function of genes associated with ferroptosis in breast cancer (BC) and systematically evaluate the relationship between ferroptosis-related gene expression profiles and prognosis in BC patients based on the Cancer Genome Atlas RNA-sequencing dataset (TCGA). By using the non-negative matrix factorization clustering method, 1,203 breast cancer samples were clustered into two clearly divided subgroups based on the expression of 237 ferroptosis-related genes. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) was used to develop risk profiles for five genes, and then these five genes were verified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The relationship between genetic risk characteristics and clinical characteristics of BC is described. The results show that the genetic risk signature associated with clinical characteristics can be used as independent prognostic indicators for BC patients.