Construction of a novel disulfidptosis-associated lncRNAs signature for risk features and immunotherapy in breast cancer.

Background: Disulfide death (disulfidptosis) is closely associated with tumor occurrence and progression. This study seeks to investigate the clinical prognostic value of disulfidptosis-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), explore their association with the tumor microenvironment, and evaluate their capacity to predict drug sensitivity in breast cancer (BRCA) patients. Methods: From The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, RNA sequencing expression profiles and corresponding clinical data of BRCA patients were obtained. Utilizing co-expression network analysis, univariate, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), as well as multivariate Cox algorithms, disulfidptosis-related lncRNA features were established. Nomogram construction and validation were employed to investigate their clinical relevance. Results: Having established a signature with eight disulfidptosis-related lncRNAs, it was found that low-risk BRCA patients exhibited significantly improved overall survival compared to high-risk counterparts. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted immune-related functions and pathways as significantly enriched in the high-risk group. Moreover, distinctions in immune cells, immune functions, and immune checkpoint genes were noted among BRCA patients at varying risk levels. The correlation between the expression of disulfidptosis-related lncRNAs and the response to chemotherapy drugs and immune therapy was evident. Conclusions: A novel prognostic model and classification for BRCA was established, which can provide robust scientific support for tailoring personalized treatment strategies for immune therapy.