A novel mTOR-associated gene signature for predicting prognosis and evaluating tumor immune microenvironment in lung adenocarcinoma

The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) was proven to have great impact on apoptosis, cell proliferation, autophagy, and many other fundamental cellular processes; moreover, it closely correlates with tumor occurrence and development. However, few studies have constructed signatures based on mTOR-associated genes to assess multiple indicators of prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients. mTOR-associated gene sets, whole mRNA expression matrices, and clinical information of LUAD patients in training and validation cohorts were obtained from multiple public databases. Multiple methods were used to screen candidate genes, construct signatures, validate internally and externally, and conduct further studies: differentially expressed gene analysis, LASSO Cox regression analysis, Cox regression analysis, risk factor analysis, nomogram analysis, functional enrichment analysis, analyses in tumor immune microenvironment, and therapy. A prognostic signature containing 8 genes (LDHA, SLA, WNT7A, PLK1, CCT6A, BTG2, TXNRD1, and DDIT4) was constructed. It performed well in both internal and external validation. Subsequent analysis found that the prognostic signature was of great significance in evaluating the tumor immune microenvironment and could guide the treatment of patients with LUAD to a certain extent. The constructed mTOR-associated gene signature accurately predicted the prognostic pattern of patients with LUAD and is expected to be extremely useful in guiding LUAD therapy. •An 8-gene signature from mTOR-related genes can predict prognosis of LUAD patients.•Patients in the HRisk group exhibit a more suppressive tumor immune microenvironment.•Different risk scores could predict different treatment effects in LUAD patients.