Ferroptosis-Related Long Non-coding RNA Predicts Prognosis Model of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common malignancy globally, and ferroptosis is an iron-dependent cell death process. Furthermore, aberrant expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) driving HCC development and progression has increased attention. Materials and Methods: We collected lncRNA expression profiles associated with ferroptosis from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and FerrDb databases and clinicopathological and overall survival (OS) information to determine the association between ferroptosis-related lncRNAs(FRlncRNAs) and survival of HCC patients by co-expression analysis. A prognostic lncRNA model of 22 differentially expressed lncRNAs was constructed using Cox regression analysis and the LASSO algorithm. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that a high-risk lncRNAs profile was associated with poor prognosis in HCC. Our risk assessment model outperformed conventional clinical data in predicting the prognosis of HCC. Result: GSEA revealed immune and tumor-related pathways in individuals in the high- and low-risk groups. In addition, TCGA showed that T cell functions, including B cells, Cytolytic, macrophages, MHC-class-I, mast cells, neutrophils, NK cells, helper T cells, Type-I-IFN, and Type-II-IFN, were significantly different between high and low-risk groups. Immune checkpoints such as TNFSF18, IDO2, CD276, NRP1, and TNFSF4 were also differentially expressed between the two risk groups. Conclusions: Our findings provide a robust prognostic and immune response prediction model for HCC patients based on lncRNAs associated with ferroptosis.

"Ferroptosis-Related Long Non-coding RNA Model Predicts Hepatocellular Carcinoma Prognosis"

“…Furthermore, given that our findings have not been validated using clinical samples, we cannot fully guarantee the dependability of our findings. In addition, the model's established prognostic indicators require further validation [43].…”