The Autophagy-Related Long Non-Coding RNA Signature for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Abstract

Background: LncRNA plays the complex functions in the regulation of autophagy in cancers. However, the effect of autophagy-related lncRNA on the prognosis of AML remains unclear. Methods: Autophagy-related genes and lncRNA profiles were integrated based on TCGA and HADb dataset. autophagy-related lncRNAs were screened out by co-expression analysis, and an autophagy-related lncRNA signature was developed by using univariate Cox analysis followed by stepwise multivariate Cox analysis. Log-rank statistical method and the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve were used to assess the efficiency of the model predictions. GSEA was used for biological functional annotation and pathways analysis. Findings: Six lncRNAs, HYMAI, MIR155HG, MGC12916, DIRC3, C1orf220 and HCP5 were final screened to construct an autophagy-related lncRNA signature. Patients with high-risk had significantly shorter OS than low-risk patients (median OS, 0.8137 years vs 3.847 years, p=1.912e-07). The area under the curve of risk score was 0.746, which was much higher than other adverse prognostic factors indicated well accuracy of prediction. The results of GSEA indicated that proteasome-related pathways were more active in high-risk group. Interpretation: Our proposed autophagy-related lncRNA signature has an important prognostic value, and may provide a promising tool for improving the development of AML risk stratification and personalized treatment. Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China (81770172); Jiangsu Provincial Special Program of Medical Science (BE2017747); Jiangsu Province 333 project (BRA2019103); The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2242019K3DZ02); Milstein Medical Asian American Partnership Foundation Research Project Award in Hematology (2017); Key Medical of Jiangsu Province (ZDXKB2016020). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.