A Novel Prognostic Ferroptosis-Related lncRNA Signature Associated with Immune Landscape in Invasive Breast Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) represents the most common form of malignant tumors in women. However, the effectiveness of BC immunotherapy remains very low. Ferroptosis is a recently described form of programmed cell death which has unique characteristics, and associated long-chain noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) are thought to influence the occurrence and development of a variety of tumors. We identified 1,636 lncRNAs associated with ferroptosis in BC patients. 299 differentially expressed ferroptosis-related lncRNAs were subjected to univariate, LASSO regression, and multivariate Cox regression analyses to construct a ten ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature. This ten ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature performed very well in predicting survival of BC patients, and the risk score of the mRNA signature was identified as an independent prognostic factor in this cancer entity. In addition, the signature could be used to predict the immune landscape of BC patients. Low-risk patients had enriched immune-related pathways and more infiltration of most types of immune cells. The signature was also associated with the tumor mutation burden in BC. The results have allowed us to assess the potential for immunotherapy targets exposed by this model. The ferroptosis-related lncRNA risk model reported in the current study has clinical utility in BC prognosis and predicted immunotherapy response.