Disulfidptosis-related signature to guide the prognosis prediction and treatment in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract Disulfidptosis, a new cell death process, is tightly linked to the tumor appearance and development. This research established a five-gene disulfidptosis-related signature (DRS) model and a nomogram to comprehensively assess patient prognosis in HCC patients. We identified two clusters, low DRS score group and high DRS score group, significantly different in overall survival and tumor microenvironment (immunoassay and mutational profile). Moreover, HCC patients in high DRS score group responded less favorably than those in low DRS score group to the current first-line therapies (TACE and sorafenib) but were more sensitive to most standard chemotherapy drugs suggesting that patients who are resistant to first-line medications may benefit from trial use of traditional chemotherapy medicines. As well, in vitro experiments showed that a path for the treatment of HCC patient with a worse prognosis may be provided by the ability of phloretin to cause the death of high SLC7A11 expression HCC cells.