A cluster of metabolism-related genes predict prognosis and progression of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) has long been considered as a metabolic disease characterized by metabolic reprogramming due to the abnormal accumulation of lipid droplets in the cytoplasm. However, the prognostic value of metabolism-related genes in ccRCC remains unclear. In our study, we investigated the associations between metabolism-related gene profile and prognosis of ccRCC patients in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Importantly, we first constructed a metabolism-related prognostic model based on ten genes (ALDH6A1, FBP1, HAO2, TYMP, PSAT1, IL4I1, P4HA3, HK3, CPT1B, and CYP26A1) using Lasso cox regression analysis. The Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that our model efficiently predicts prognosis in TCGA_KIRC Cohort and the clinical proteomic tumor analysis consortium (CPTAC_ccRCC) Cohort. Using time-dependent ROC analysis, we showed the model has optimal performance in predicting long-term survival. Besides, the multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated our model is an independent prognostic factor. The risk score calculated for each patient was significantly associated with various clinicopathological parameters. Notably, the gene set enrichment analysis indicated that fatty acid metabolism was enriched considerably in low-risk patients. In contrast, the high-risk patients were more associated with non-metabolic pathways. In summary, our study provides novel insight into metabolism-related genes’ roles in ccRCC.