Identification of Autophagy-Related Long Non-Coding RNA Prognostic Signature for Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Background: Studies over the past decade have shown that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an essential role in the tumorigenesis and progression of kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC). Meanwhile, autophagy has been demonstrated to regulate KIRC pathogenesis and targeting therapy resistance. However, the prognostic value of autophagy-related lncRNAs in KIRC patients has not been reported before.Methods: In this study, we obtained transcriptome data of 611 KIRC cases from the TCGA database and 258 autophagy-related mRNAs from the HADb database to identify autophagy-related lncRNAs by co-expression network. A prognostic model was then established basing on these autophagy-related lncRNAs, dividing patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. Survival analysis, clinical variables dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, univariate/multivariate Cox analyses, and clinical correlation analysis were performed based on risk signature with R language. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was then performed to investigate the potential mechanism of the risk signature promoting KIRC progression with GSEA software. Results: A total of 17 lncRNAs were screened out and all these lncRNAs were found significantly related to KIRC patients' overall survival in subsequent survival analyses. Besides, the overall survival time in the high-risk group was much poorer than in the low-risk group. The ROC analysis revealed that the prognostic value of risk signature was better than age, gender, grade, and N stage. Univariate/multivariate analyses suggested that the risk signature was an independent predictive factor for KIRC patients. Immune-related pathways were dramatically enriched in high-risk patients according to GSEA. Conclusions: In summary, our identified 17 autophagy-related lncRNAs had prognostic value for KIRC patients which may function in Immunomodulation.