Disulfidptosis-related lncRNA signature reveals immune microenvironment and novel molecular subtyping of stomach adenocarcinoma.

ABSTRACT

The main challenge in treating stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) is chemotherapy resistance, which is characterized by changes in the immune microenvironment. Disulfidptosis, a novel form of programmed cell death, is involved in STAD but its mechanism is not fully understood. Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) may play a role in regulating disulfidptosis and influencing the immune microenvironment and chemotherapy resistance in STAD. This study aims to establish disulfidptosis-related lncRNA (DRL) features and explore their significance in the immune microenvironment and chemotherapy resistance in STAD patients. By analyzing RNA sequencing and clinical data from STAD patients and extracting disulfidptosis-related genes, we identified DRLs through co-expression, single-factor and multi-factor Cox regression, and Lasso regression analyses. We also investigated differences in the immune microenvironment, immune function, immune checkpoint gene expression, and chemotherapy resistance between different risk groups using various algorithms. A prognostic risk model consisting of 2 DRLs was constructed, with a strong predictive value for patient survival, outperforming other clinical-pathological factors in predicting 3-year and 5-year survival. Immune-related analysis revealed a strong positive correlation between T cell CD4+ cells and risk score across all algorithms, and higher expression of immune checkpoint genes in the high-risk group. In addition, high-risk patients showed better sensitivity to Erlotinib, Oxaliplatin, and Gefitinib. Furthermore, three novel molecular subtypes of STAD were identified based on the 2-DRLs features, with evaluation of the immune microenvironment and chemotherapy drug sensitivity for each subgroup, which holds significant implications for achieving precise treatment in STAD. Overall, our 2-DRLs prognostic model demonstrates high predictive value for patient survival in STAD, potentially providing new targets for individualized immune and chemical therapy.