Prognostic Inflammasome-Related Signature Construction in Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma Based on a Pan-Cancer Landscape

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expression patterns and prognostic characteristics of inflammasome-related genes (IRGs) across cancer types and develop a robust biomarker for the prognosis of KIRC. METHODS: The differentially expressed IRGs and prognostic genes among 10 cancers were analyzed based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. Subsequently, an IRGs risk signature was developed in KIRC. Its prognostic accuracy was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The independent predictive capacity was identified by stratification survival and multivariate Cox analyses. The gene ontology (GO) analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed to explore biological functions of the IRGs signature in KIRC. RESULTS: The expression patterns and prognostic association of IRGs varied from different cancers, while KIRC showed the most abundant survival-related dysregulated IRGs. The IRG signature for KIRC was able to independently predict survival, and the signature genes were mainly involved inimmune-related processes. CONCLUSIONS: The pan-cancer analysis provided a comprehensive landscape of IRGs across cancer types and identified a strong association between IRGs and the prognosis of KIRC. Further IRGs signature represented a reliable prognostic predictor for KIRC and verified the prognostic value of inflammasomes in KIRC, contributing to our understanding of therapies targeting inflammasomes for human cancers.