Abstract
Esophageal carcinoma (ESCA) is a malignant tumor with high invasiveness and mortality. Autophagy has multiple roles in the development of cancer; however, there are limited data on autophagy genes associated with long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in ESCA. The purpose of this study was to screen potential diagnostic and prognostic molecules and to identify gene co-expression networks associated with autophagy in ESCA. We downloaded transcriptome expression profiles from The Cancer Genome Atlas and autophagy-related gene data from the Human Autophagy Database, and analyzed the co-expression of mRNAs and lncRNAs. In addition, the diagnostic and prognostic value of autophagy-related lncRNAs was analyzed by multivariate Cox regression. Furthermore, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis was carried out for high-risk patients, and enriched pathways were analyzed by gene set enrichment analysis. The results showed that genes of high-risk patients were enriched in protein export and spliceosome. Based on Cox stepwise regression and survival analysis, we identified seven autophagy-related lncRNAs with prognostic and diagnostic value, with the potential to be used as a combination to predict the prognosis of patients with ESCA. Finally, a co-expression network related to autophagy was constructed. These results suggest that autophagy-related lncRNAs and the spliceosome play important parts in the pathogenesis of ESCA. Our findings provide new insight into the molecular mechanism of ESCA and suggest a new method for improving its treatment.
Highlights
Esophageal carcinoma (ESCA) is a malignant tumor with high invasiveness and mortality
These results suggest that autophagy-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and the spliceosome play important parts in the pathogenesis of ESCA
We used the limma R package to analyze the co-expression of autophagy-related mRNAs and lncRNAs in patients with ESCA
Summary
Esophageal carcinoma (ESCA) is a malignant tumor with high invasiveness and mortality. Autophagy has multiple roles in the development of cancer; there are limited data on autophagy genes associated with long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in ESCA. The purpose of this study was to screen potential diagnostic and prognostic molecules, and to identify gene co-expression networks associated with autophagy in ESCA. Autophagy maintains a low level of activity, forming autophagosomes by capturing organelles to be degraded[1]. These combine with the lysosome to form an autophagic lysosome, which degrades the contents for use in the self-renewal of cells[2]. Existing studies have shown that autophagy in the pathological state is closely related to the occurrence and development of cancer[3]. Cancer can change the normal autophagy mechanism, and autophagy-related gene mutations can lead to the occurrence of cancer[5]
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