A Prognostic Model of Pancreatic Cancer Based on Ferroptosis-Related Genes to Determine Its Immune Landscape and Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the worst prognosis in the world. As a new way of programmed cell death, ferroptosis has been proven to have potential in tumor therapy. In this study, we used the TCGA-PAAD cohort combined with the previously reported 60 ferroptosis-related genes to construct and validate the prognosis model and in-depth analysis of the differences in the function and immune characteristics of different RiskTypes. The results showed that the six-gene signature prognostic model that we constructed has good stability and effectiveness. Further analysis showed that the upregulated genes in the high-risk group were mainly enriched in extracellular matrix receptor-related pathways and other tumor-related pathways and the infiltration of immune cells, such as B, T, and NK cells, was suppressed. In short, our model shows good stability and effectiveness. Further studies have found that the prognostic differences between different RiskTypes may be due to the changes in the ECM-receptor pathway and activation of the immune system. Additionally, ICI drugs can treat pancreatic cancer in high-risk groups.