Diagnostic and prognostic value of the gasdermins in gastric cancer

Pyroptosis has attracted attention due to its role in various cancers. Recently, gasdermins (GSDMs) involved in pyroptosis have been reported to be associated with several types of cancers. However, the role of GSDMs expression in the diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) is still not well understood. We analyzed the transcriptional and prognostic information and the role of GSDMs in patients with GC from TIMER, UALCAN, Human Protein Atlas (HPA), GEPIA, and Kaplan-Meier Plotter databases. The cBioPortal platform was used to discover the genetic alterations, significance, and networks of GSDMs. Furthermore, STRING, Cytoscape, and TIMER were used to explore functional enrichment and immunomodulation. GSDMB, GSDMC, GSDMD, and GSDME were more highly expressed in GC than in normal tissues in the TIMER database. Moreover, survival analyses in two databases showed that high expression of GSDME was related to shorter overall survival (OS) in patients with GC. Additionally, functional enrichment revealed that GSDMs may be involved in endopeptidase activity, peptidase regulatory activity, and cysteine peptidase activity. GSDMs correlated with infiltration levels of immune cells in GC, and GSDME correlated with the infiltrating level of CD4+ T, CD8+ T, neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells. This study indicated the potential diagnostic and prognostic value of GSDMs in GC. Our results showed that GSDME could play a significant oncogenic role in GC diagnosis and prognosis. However, our bioinformatics analyses should be validated in further prospective studies.