A lactylation-related gene signature predicts metastasis and prognosis in breast cancer

Breast cancer (BC) remains one of the most prevalent and deadly cancers among women worldwide. Nearly one-third of early-stage cases eventually develop metastases, dropping the five-year survival rate to just 24%. Lactylation plays an important role in various tumor metastases, but its role in breast cancer is not yet fully understood. Here, we developed a prognostic model based on lactylation-related genes using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), validated by three Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Functional enrichment analysis identified key biological processes, and further analyses explored associations with clinical characteristics, immune cell infiltration, drug sensitivity, and molecular docking affinities. Finally, we further verified the functional role of lactylation and prognostic genes through experimental verification. Our study demonstrates that lactylation-related genes serve as predictive biomarkers for BC metastasis and proposed novel therapeutic targets for further clinical intervention.