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Research Paper|Volume 14, Issue 24|pp 9980—10008

The prognostic value of NLRP1/NLRP3 and its relationship with immune infiltration in human gastric cancer

Ping Wang1, Yulan Gu2, Jianke Yang1, Jiamin Qiu3, Yeqiong Xu4, Zengxiang Xu1, Jiguang Gao1, Chuandan Wan4
  • 1School of Preclinical Medicine, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu 241001, China
  • 2Department of Oncology, Changshu Second People’s Hospital, Changshu 215500, China
  • 3Department of Pathology, Changshu Second People’s Hospital, Changshu 215500, China
  • 4Central laboratory of Changshu Medical examination Institute, Changshu 215500, China
* Equal contribution
Received: September 30, 2022Accepted: December 9, 2022Published: December 19, 2022
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204438

Copyright: © 2022 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: Inflammasomes are related to tumorigenesis and immune-regulation. Here, we investigated the prognostic value of the NLR family pyrin domain containing (NLRP) 1/NLRP3 inflammasome and its potential mechanisms in immune-regulation in gastric cancer (GC).

Methods: We analyzed the differential expression of NLRP1/NLRP3 between tumor and normal tissues using the Oncomine and Tumor Immune Estimate Resource (TIMER) databases. Immunohistochemistry and western blotting were used to detect NLRP1/NLRP3 protein expression in GC tissues. Correlations between NLRP1/NLRP3 expression levels and patient survival were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier survival curves. The relationships of NLRP1/NLRP3 expression and tumor-infiltrating immune cells/marker genes were assessed using the TIMER database. NLRP1/NLRP3 and immune checkpoint gene correlations were verified by single-gene co-expression analyses, and tumor immune-related pathways involving NLRP1/NLRP3 were analyzed using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA).

Results: Elevated NLRP1/NLRP3 expression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis, poor survival, immune-infiltrating cell abundances, and immune cell markers. NLRP3 showed stronger correlations with immune infiltration and the prognosis of gastric cancer. NLRP1 and NLRP3 might be involved in the same tumor immune-related pathways. Thus, high NLRP1/NLRP3 expression promotes immune cell infiltration and poor prognosis in GC. NLRP1/NLRP3, particularly NLRP3, may have important roles in immune infiltration and may serve as a prognostic biomarker for GC.

Conclusions: NLRP1/NLRP3, particularly NLRP3, may have important roles in immune infiltration and may serve as a prognostic biomarker for GC.