An autophagy-related long non-coding RNA signature for patients with colorectal cancer

Abstract

AimLong non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified to regulate cancers by controlling the process of autophagy and by mediating the post-transcriptional and transcriptional regulation of autophagy-related genes. This study aimed to investigate the potential prognostic role of autophagy-associated lncRNAs in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.MethodsLncRNA expression profiles and the corresponding clinical information of CRC patients were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Based on the TCGA dataset, autophagy-related lncRNAs were identified by Pearson correlation test. Univariate Cox regression analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator analysis (LASSO) Cox regression model were performed to construct the prognostic gene signature. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to further clarify the underlying molecular mechanisms.ResultsWe obtained 210 autophagy-related genes from the whole dataset and found 1187 lncRNAs that were correlated with the autophagy-related genes. Using Univariate and LASSO Cox regression analyses, eight lncRNAs were screened to establish an eight-lncRNA signature, based on which patients were divided into the low-risk and high-risk group. Patients’ overall survival was found to be significantly worse in the high-risk group compared to that in the low-risk group (log-rank p = 2.731E-06). ROC analysis showed that this signature had better prognostic accuracy than TNM stage, as indicated by the area under the curve. Furthermore, GSEA demonstrated that this signature was involved in many cancer-related pathways, including TGF-β, p53, mTOR and WNT signaling pathway.ConclusionsOur study constructed a novel signature from eight autophagy-related lncRNAs to predict the overall survival of CRC, which could assistant clinicians in making individualized treatment.

Emerging role of lncRNAs in drug resistance mechanisms in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

“…LncRNAs are involved in autophagy, modulating the expression of ATG genes by acting as ceRNAs for miRNAs ( 36 , 180 ). Recently, several autophagy-related lncRNAs have been proposed as biomarkers and signatures for diagnostic and prognostic purposes for many cancer types, including breast ( 182 , 183 ), bladder ( 184 , 185 ), pancreatic ( 186 ), colorectal ( 187 , 188 ), and lung ( 189 , 190 ). In most cases, the overall survival of patients in high-risk groups is significantly lower based on the presence of each proposed signature.…”

Identification of a novel autophagy-related prognostic signature and small molecule drugs for glioblastoma by bioinformatics

“…As a mechanism for maintaining cellular homeostasis, autophagy is an intracellular lysosomal degradation process [ 7 – 9 ], including cancer initiation and development. Hundreds of scholars have concentrated on the presentation of an optimum model for autophagy-related prognostic signature [ 10 , 11 ], but the GBM-specific genetic profile has not been identified yet, and early markers for prognosis of GBM are still unknown. In recent years, the crucial roles of autophagy have been reported in a variety of diseases [ 12 , 13 ].…”