Development of a novel three-lncRNA immune-related signature as a prognostic indicator for hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest malignancies. Currently, there is still a lack of effective treatment. Our purpose was to develop an immune-related prognosis lncRNA signature with regard to HCC. Methods:A total of 14,142 lncRNAs and 331 immune genes were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Molecular Signatures Database to construct the immune-related lncRNAs coexpression networks. Moreover, the tumor samples collected from TCGA were randomized as training set and testing set, among which, the testing set and the entire set were used for verification.Subsequently, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed for functional annotation.Results: An immune-related signature consisting of AC015908.3, AC068987.4 and AL365203.2 was identified among HCC patients. Under different conditions, patients in low-risk group exhibited longer overall survival (OS) than those in high-risk group (P < 0.001). Moreover, the as-constructed signature was an independent factor, which showed marked association with patient OS (P < 0.001, hazard ratio (HR) = 1.407). These findings were further validated in testing set and the entire set.Additionally, GSEA results revealed the different immune states between low-risk and high-risk groups. On the other hand, lncRNA-related mRNAs were also extracted to depict the networks. Conclusion:Our findings indicate that the three-lncRNA immune-related signature shows prognostic value for HCC. BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, which affects about 800,000 cases annually [1]. Generally, HCC is treated with surgical resection and chemotherapy, but the mortality rate remains high [2], and the prognosis for HCC patients is affected by various factors. By contrast, the therapeutic regimens that counteract the immunosuppressive mechanisms potentially change the clinical outcomes of HCC, which prompts us to further explore the relationship of the abnormal local immune status with HCC development and prognosis [3]. Moreover, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) possess a wide range of functional activities [4,5], and their