Cuproptosis-related gene SERPINE1 is a prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in gastric cancer

PURPOSE: The serine protease inhibitor clade E member 1 (SERPINE1) has been studied as a potential biomarker in a variety of cancers, but poorly studied in gastric cancer (GC). The purpose of this study was to explore the prognostic value of SERPINE1 in GC and primarily analyze its functions. METHODS: We analyzed the the prognostic value of SERPINE1 and studied the relationship with clinicopathologic biomarkers in gastric cancer. The expression of SERPINE1 was analyzed by GEO and TCGA databases. Moreover, we validated the results by immunohistochemistry. Next, the correlation analysis between SERPINE1 and the cuproptosis-related genes was analyzed by the “Spearman” method. CIBERSORT and TIMER algorithms were used to analyze the correlation of SERPINE1 with immune infiltration. Furthermore, GO and KEGG gene enrichment analyses were used to study the functions and pathways that SERPINE1 might be involved in. Then, drug sensitivity analysis was performed using CellMiner database. Finally, a cuproptosis-immune-related prognostic model was constructed using genes related to immune and cuproptosis, and verified against external datasets. RESULTS: SERPINE1 was up-regulated in gastric cancer tissues, which tends toward poor prognosis. Using immunohistochemistry experiment, the expression and prognostic value of SERPINE1 were verified. Then, we found that SERPINE1 was negatively correlated with cuproptosis-related genes FDX1, LIAS, LIPT1, and PDHA1. On the contrary, SERPINE1 was positively correlated with APOE. This indicates the effect of SERPINE1 on the cuproptosis process. Furthermore, by conducting immune-related analyses, it was revealed that SERPINE1 may promote the inhibitory immune microenvironment. The infiltration level of resting NK cells, neutrophils, activated mast cells, and macrophages M2 was positively correlated with SERPINE1. However, B cell memory and plasma cells were negatively correlated with SERPINE1. Functional analysis showed that SERPINE1 was closely related to angiogenesis, apoptosis, and ECM degradation. The KEGG pathway analysis showed that SERPINE1 may be associated with P53, Pi3k/Akt, TGF-β, and other signaling pathways. Drug sensitivity analysis showed that SERPINE1 could be also seen as a potential treatment target. The risk model based on SERPINE1 co-expression genes could better predict the survival of GC patients than SERPINE1 alone. We also verified the prognostic value of the risk score by GEO external datasets. CONCLUSION: SERPINE1 is highly expressed in gastric cancer and related to poor prognosis. SERPINE1 may regulate cuproptosis and the immune microenvironment by a series of pathways. Therefore, SERPINE1 as a prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target deserves further study. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00432-023-04900-1.