An Efficient Signature Based on Necroptosis-Related Genes for Prognosis of Patients With Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PCa) is a highly lethal and aggressive disease, characterized by high mortality rates. Although necroptosis plays a vital role in tumor progression, cancer metastasis, prognosis of cancer patients, necroptosis-related gene (NRG) sets have rarely been analyzed in PCa. Therefore, definition of novel necroptosis-related prognostic markers for PCa patients is urgently needed. Here, we screened 159 NRGs and identified 132 differentially expressed NRGs in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) cohorts. Next, we employed univariate and multivariate Cox proportional regression models to establish a prognostic-related NRG signature comprising five NRGs that could stratify patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. Results from survival analysis showed that patients in the high-risk had dramatically shorter overall survival (OS) rates compared with their low-risk counterparts. Results from univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis further confirmed the independent prognostic value of the established necroptosis-related signature, and the area under receiver (AUC) of the operating curve (ROC) for 1-, 3-, 5-years was 0.72, 0.74, and 0.75, respectively. Finally, we validated the signature efficacy using an independent cohort from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The ROC curve confirmed the predictive capacity of the five-gene signature. Furthermore, we validated expression of the signature proteins using the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database. In conclusion, we successfully constructed a novel necroptosis-related signature for prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer.