Construction of a neutrophil extracellular trap formation-related gene model for predicting the survival of lung adenocarcinoma patients and their response to immunotherapy.

Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Increasing evidence indicates that neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) play a critical role in tumor progression, metastasis and immunosuppression in the LUAD tumor microenvironment (TME). Nevertheless, the use of NET formation-related genes (NFRGs) to predict LUAD patient survival and response to immunotherapy has not been explored. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a NFRGs-based prognostic signature for stratifying LUAD patients and informing individualized management strategies.

Methods: The cell composition of the LUAD TME was investigated using the single-cell sequencing data in Single-Cell Lung Cancer Atlas (LuCA). NFRGs were identified to construct a prognostic signature based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort which was validated in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset. The univariate Cox and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression models, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and Brier Score were applied to assess the prognostic model. A nomogram was established to facilitate the clinical application of the risk score. The Estimation of STromal and Immune cells in MAlignant Tumor tissues (ESTIMATE) and Tumor Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion (TIDE) algorithm were utilized to assess the TME and predict immunotherapy response. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was applied to quantify the expression levels of four NFRGs in LUAD paired tissue samples.

Results: Single‑cell RNA sequence analysis showed the importance of neutrophils in LUAD TME. We developed and validated a 4-NFRG (CAT, CTSG, ENO1, TLR2) prognostic signature based on TCGA and GEO cohorts, which stratified patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that our risk model could independently predict the survival of LUAD patients. Patients in the low-risk group exhibited a more active immune microenvironment, lower TIDE scores, lower half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values and higher immune checkpoint molecule expression. Our risk signature could serve as a biomarker for predicting immunotherapeutic benefits.

Conclusions: We developed a novel prognostic signature for LUAD patients based on NFRGs and emphasized the critical role of this signature in predicting LUAD patient survival and immunotherapy response.