The signature genes of cuproptosis associates with tumor immune microenvironment and predicts prognosis in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma

BackgroundCuproptosis is a new form of cell death, which has great potential to be developed in tumors treatment. Our study aimed to explore the predictive value of cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in various cancers, with a focus on kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC).MethodA total of 9502 pan-cancer patients from TCGA cohort were enrolled. The relationships between CRGs and overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS) were analyzed. Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA) enrichment analysis was performed to explore the expression differences of CRGs. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between GSVA scores and patient survival. KEGG and GO analyses were employed to identify the biological functions and pathways. The expression and prognostic characteristics of FDX1 were examined to evaluate the correlation between FDX1 and KIRC. Cell experiments were conducted to verify whether FDX1 was involved in cuproptosis of Caki-1 cells induced by Elesclomol.ResultsPositive cuproptosis signature genes(pos.cu.sig) exhibited the correlation with prognosis in KIRC, and all of these genes showed differential expression between KIRC and normal tissues. The GSVA score of pos.cu.sig was associated with excellent survival (HR=0.61, P