Breast Cancer Prognosis Prediction and Immune Pathway Molecular Analysis Based on Mitochondria-Related Genes

Mitochondria play an important role in breast cancer (BRCA). We aimed to build a prognostic model based on mitochondria-related genes.

Univariate Cox regression analysis, random forest, and the LASSO method were performed in sequence on pretreated TCGA BRCA datasets to screen out genes from a Gene Set Enrichment Analysis, Gene Ontology: biological process gene set to build a prognosis risk score model. Survival analyses and ROC curves were performed to verify the model by using the GSE103091 dataset. The BRCA datasets were equally divided into high- and low-risk score groups. Comparisons between clinical features and immune infiltration related to different risk scores and gene mutation analysis and drug sensitivity prediction were performed for different groups.

Four genes, MRPL36, FEZ1, BMF, and AFG1L, were screened to construct our risk score model in which the higher the risk score, the poorer the prognosis. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the risk score was significantly associated with age, M stage, and N stage. The gene mutation probability in the high-risk score group was significantly higher than that in the low-risk score group. Patients with higher risk scores were more likely to die. Drug sensitivity prediction in different groups indicated that PF-562271 and AS601245 might be new inhibitors of BRCA.

We developed a new workable risk score model based on mitochondria-related genes for BRCA prognosis and identified new targets and drugs for BRCA research.