Abstract
Autophagy plays a vital role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) pathogenesis. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are considered regulators of autophagy, and the aim of the present study was to investigate the prognostic value of autophagy-related lncRNA (ARlncRNA) and develop a new prognostic signature to predict the 1-year and 3-year overall survival (OS) of HCC patients. Transcriptome and clinical survival information of HCC patients was obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. A set of ARlncRNAs was identified by co-expression analysis, from which seven ARlncRNAs (AC005229.4, AL365203.2, AL117336.3, AC099850.3, ELFN1-AS1, LUCAT1, and AL031985.3) were selected for use as a predictive signature. Risk scores were derived for each patient, who were then divided into high-risk and low-risk groups according to the median risk value. The OS of high-risk patients was significantly lower than that of low-risk patients (P < 0.0001). The 1- and 3-year time-dependent ROC curves were used to evaluate the predictive ability of the risk score (AUC = 0.785 of 1 year, 0.710 of 3 years), and its predictive ability was found to be better than TNM stage. Moreover, the risk score was significantly, linearly related to pathological grade and TNM stage (P < 0.05). Overall, a novel nomogram to predict the 1-year and 3-year OS of HCC patients was developed, which shows good reliability and accuracy, for use in improved treatment decision-making.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a tumor of the digestive system with high malignancy, high rate of metastasis and recurrence, and poor prognosis
59 differentially expressed ARGs (DEARGs) and 3,401 DElncRNAs were obtained (Figures 2A–D). These differentially expressed genes were subjected to coexpression analysis, and the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) > 0.4 and P < 0.001 were used as the screening criteria, and 303 Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) significantly related to autophagy-related genes (ARGs) were obtained (Supplementary Material 1)
Multivariate Cox analysis allowed for the construction of a new prognostic signature based on seven DEARlncRNAs, including AC005229.4, AL365203.2, AL117336.3, AC099850.3, ELFN1-AS1, LUCAT1, and AL031985.3
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a tumor of the digestive system with high malignancy, high rate of metastasis and recurrence, and poor prognosis. It is the most common pathological type of primary liver cancer, the fifth most common malignant tumor worldwide, and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths (Bray et al, 2018). Surgical resection and liver transplantation of early HCC patients can effectively control tumor development and prolong survival time (Padhya et al, 2013). Exploring potential molecular mechanisms and cell signaling pathways underlying the pathogenesis of HCC, studying markers with prognostic value, and constructing a prognostic signature will improve clinical decision-making, benefiting patients and extending the prognostic survival time
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