Integration of clinical and transcriptomics reveals programming of the lipid metabolism in gastric cancer

Lipid metabolism has a profound impact on gastric cancer (GC) progression and is a newly targetable vulnerability for cancer therapy. Given the importance of lipids in cancer cellular processes, in this study we employed lipidomic clinical and transcriptomic data to connect the variations of lipid metabolism changes of GC. We constructed a clinical nomogram based on the lipid factors and other clinical items. Then by using multi-omics techniques, we established a lipid-related gene signature for individualized prognosis prediction in patients with GC. Moreover, a total of 1357 GC cases were then applied to evaluate the robustness of this model. WGCNA was used to identify co-expression modules and enriched genes associated with GC lipid metabolism. The role of key genes ACLY in GC was further investigated. The prognostic value of the lipgenesis signature was analyzed using Cox regression model, and clinical nomogram was established. Among them, we observed overexpression of ACLY significantly increased the levels of intracellular free fatty acid and triglyceride, and activated AKT/mTOR pathway to promote cancer development. In conclusion, our findings revealed that GC exhibited a reprogramming of lipid metabolism in association with an altered expression of associated genes. Among them, ACLY significantly promoted GC lipid metabolism and increased cancer cell proliferation, suggesting that this pathway can be targetable as a metabolic vulnerability in future GC therapy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-022-10017-4.