The use of TCGA and GEO datasets to analyze clinical significance of glutathione reductase in gastric cancer

Objective To explore the expressions of glutathione reductase in gastric cancer, to investigate the relationship between glutathione reductase (GSR) and clinical pathological characteristics of gastric cancers, to identify the role of GSR in evaluation of the prognosis of gastric cancer patients, and to investigate the role of GSR in the development of gastric cancer. Methods The gastric cancer datasets were searched and downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and chip data were analyzed with clinical information. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was conducted to explore the gene sets enriched in samples with high GSR expression. Results The expression of GSR was down-regulated in high grade tumors (P<0.01). No significant difference was found between different age, Shortest tumor diameter, American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) M stage, Barrett's esophagus, family history of gastric cancer, and Helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) infection. Higher expression of GSR indicated poor prognosis in gastric cancer. GSEA indicated that GSR regulates gene sets associated with oxidative phosphorylation, metabolism of nucleotides, mitochondrial protein import, and mitotic G1 S phases. Conclusions GSR can be used as an indicator to predict the prognosis of gastric cancer patients and a target for the treatment of gastric cancer. Key words: Chromosome mapping; Neoplasms/GE; Gene expression profiling; Glutathione reductase/ME; Stomach neoplasms/ME