Classification of pyroptosis patterns and construction of a novel prognostic model for prostate cancer based on bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing

BACKGROUND: Emerging evidence suggests an important role for pyroptosis in tumorigenesis and recurrence, but it remains to be elucidated in prostate cancer (PCa). Considering the low accuracy of common clinical predictors of PCa recurrence, we aimed to develop a novel pyroptosis-related signature to predict the prognosis of PCa patients based on integrative analyses of bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) profiling. METHODS: The RNA-seq data of PCa patients was downloaded from several online databases. PCa patients were stratified into two Classes by unsupervised clustering. A novel signature was constructed by Cox and the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression. The Kaplan-Meier curve was employed to evaluate the prognostic value of this signature and the single sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm was used to analysis tumor-infiltrating immune cells. At single-cell level, we also classified the malignant cells into two Classes and constructed cell developmental trajectories and cell-cell interaction networks. Furthermore, RT-qPCR and immunofluorescence were used to validate the expression of core pyroptosis-related genes. RESULTS: Twelve prognostic pyroptosis-related genes were identified and used to classify PCa patients into two prognostic Classes. We constructed a signature that identified PCa patients with different risks of recurrence and the risk score was proven to be an independent predictor of the recurrence free survival (RFS). Patients in the high-risk group had a significantly lower RFS (P<0.001). The expression of various immune cells differed between the two Classes. At the single-cell level, we classified the malignant cells into two Classes and described the heterogeneity. In addition, we observed that malignant cells may shift from Class1 to Class2 and thus have a worse prognosis. CONCLUSION: We have constructed a robust pyroptosis-related signature to predict the RFS of PCa patients and described the heterogeneity of prostate cancer cells in terms of pyroptosis.