A novel pyroptosis-related gene signature correlated to C6orf99 for predicting the prognosis of breast cancer

Abstract The relationship between the pyroptosis-related long non-coding RNA (PRlncRNA) and the prognosis of breast cancer has not been clearly studied. According to relevant studies, the expression of the lncRNA C6orf99 is associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer. In our study, we demonstrated that high expression of C6orf99 is adverse for the prognosis of breast cancer using the TCGA dataset. In addition, there were five pyroptosis related genes (PRGs) (PJVK, CASP4, IL18, ELANE and TIRAP) associated with the expression of C6orf99 and survival outcomes of breast cancer. According to the expression of PJVK, CASP4, IL18, and ELANE, breast cancer samples were divided into two different subclusters (C1 and C2) using clustering analysis. Furthermore, a new C6orf99-related PRGs risk model was constructed to predict the prognosis of breast cancer. The high-risk group had worse survival outcomes and lower immune infiltration level, whereas the low-risk group had better survival outcomes and higher immune infiltration level. We further found that the higher the expression intensity of CASP4 and IL18 in 66 breast tumor tissues by immunohistochemical staining, the earlier the clinical stage, the smaller the tumor, the better the survival outcome. Our finding of C6orf99-related PRGs suggest a new idea for the treatment of breast cancer cases, and may become a new molecular target for targeted therapy.