Construction of a Ferroptosis-Related Gene Signature for Predicting Survival and Immune Microenvironment in Melanoma Patients

Objective In this research, we studied the genes associated with ferroptosis to develop a prognostic model and find out an association with tumor immune microenvironment in skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) patients. Methods To find SKCM-related ferroptosis genes, we used Cox regression and LASSO approach on 60 genes related to ferroptosis and SKCM-related RNA-seq. Following that, a ferroptosis-related gene signature was created. Time-dependent ROC curve and Kaplan-Meier analysis were calculated to determine its capability of prediction. Besides, several assessments were used to evaluate overall survival (OS), accompanied by the creation of a nomogram for the clinicopathologic factors and the ferroptosis-related gene signature we established. We also investigated the relationship between ferroptosis-related gene signature with three immune checkpoints and immune cell infiltration. Results Our prognostic model included two genes (ALOX5, CHAC1). In both TCGA and GEO cohorts, OS was lower in high-risk category. Using our gene signature, we can reliably predict OS. Additionally, our gene signature can predict immune cell infiltration and SKCM immunotherapy response. Conclusion Our gene signature has shown to be a reliable predictor of OS, reflect the immune microenvironment, and predict the effectiveness of immunotherapy for SKCM patients.