Analysis of nitrogen metabolism-related gene expression in hepatocellular carcinoma to establish relevant indicators for prediction of prognosis and guidance of immunotherapy

Background: The prognosis of cancers is strongly connected with nitrogen metabolism (NM), which plays a critical role in the microenvironment and growth of tumors. It is unsubstantiated, however, how important NM-related genes are for the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Using publicly available data, we examined potential mechanisms of NM-related genes in HCC, created a predictive model, and assessed immune infiltration and medication sensitivity. Results: A prognostic model, which included 12 NM genes (COLQ, GNE, ISCU, MSRA, SARS2, SPHK1, CBS, GOT2, CHST1, EXTL2, GCLM, YARS1), was constructed based on regression analysis. The robustness of the model was validated using multiple methods. The high-risk (HR) and low-risk (LR) groups had varying degrees of immune infiltration, according to an immunology-related study. Of these, B cells and Type_II_IFN_Response were greatly infiltrated in the LR group, whereas aCDs, Macrophages, and Treg were heavily infiltrated in the HR group (p

研究背景：癌症预后与氮代谢（nitrogen metabolism, NM）密切相关，氮代谢在肿瘤微环境及肿瘤生长过程中发挥关键调控作用。然而，氮代谢相关基因对肝细胞癌（hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC）预后的重要性尚未得到明确证实。
研究方法：本研究利用公开可用的数据集，探讨了肝细胞癌中氮代谢相关基因的潜在作用机制，构建了预后预测模型，并评估了免疫浸润特征与药物敏感性。
研究结果：基于回归分析，本研究构建了包含12个氮代谢相关基因（COLQ、GNE、ISCU、MSRA、SARS2、SPHK1、CBS、GOT2、CHST1、EXTL2、GCLM、YARS1）的预后模型，并通过多种方法验证了该模型的稳健性。免疫学相关分析显示，高风险组（high-risk, HR）与低风险组（low-risk, LR）的免疫浸润程度存在显著差异：低风险组中B细胞与II型干扰素应答（Type_II_IFN_Response）浸润程度较高，而高风险组则以aCDs、巨噬细胞（Macrophages）及调节性T细胞（Treg）的高浸润为特征（p