AUTHOR=Jia Yu , Chen Yan , Liu Jiansheng 

TITLE=Prognosis-Predictive Signature and Nomogram Based on Autophagy-Related Long Non-coding RNAs for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.608668

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2020.608668

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Autophagy plays a vital role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) pathogenesis. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are considered regulators of autophagy, and the aim of the present study was to investigate the prognostic value of autophagy-related lncRNA (ARlncRNA) and develop a new prognostic signature to predict the 1-year and 3-year overall survival (OS) of HCC patients. Transcriptome and clinical survival information of HCC patients was obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. A set of ARlncRNAs was identified by co-expression analysis, from which 7 ARlncRNAs (AC005229.4, AL365203.2, AL117336.3, AC099850.3, ELFN1-AS1, LUCAT1, AL031985.3) were selected for use as a predictive signature. Risk scores were derived for each patient, who were then divided into high-risk and low-risk groups according to the median risk value. The OS of high-risk patients was significantly lower than that of low-risk patients (P <0.0001). The 1- and 3-year time-dependent ROC curves were used to evaluate the predictive ability of the risk score (AUC=0.785of 1 year, 0.710 of 3 years), and its predictive ability was found to be better than TNM stage. Moreover, the risk score was significantly, linearly related to pathological grade and TNM stage (P <0.05). Overall, a novel nomogram to predict the 1-year and 3-year OS of HCC patients was developed, which shows good reliability and accuracy, for use in improved treatment decision-making.