Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 9 pp 13153—13165

Identification of potential autophagy-associated lncRNA in prostate cancer

Jun Li1, *, , Hong Du1, *, , Wenqiang Chen1, , Mingxing Qiu1, , Peng He1, , Zhiwei Ma1, ,

  • 1 Department of Urology, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
* Equal contribution and co-first authors

Received: December 22, 2020       Accepted: March 14, 2021       Published: May 10, 2021      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202997
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2021 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been linked to autophagy. It is urgent to identify and assess the hub autophagy-associated lncRNA in prostate cancer.

Methods: Differentially expressed lncRNAs associated with autophagy were identified in prostate cancer based on The Cancer Genome Atlas Prostate Adenocarcinoma (TCGA-PRAD) data. An autophagy-mediated competing endogenous RNA network was constructed to screen for autophagy-associated lncRNA, and the preselected lncRNAs were further validated using Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Furthermore, a prognostic lncRNA signature was established and assessed. Additionally, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) revealed the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Results: Using a competing endogenous RNA network, 66 differentially expressed lncRNAs associated with autophagy were identified, and the differential expression of 7 lncRNAs were verified using the TCGA-PRAD, GSE21034, and GSE94767 datasets. Additionally, a lncRNA signature associated with autophagy, including MKNK1-AS1 and INE1, was identified as an independent indicator of survival with a C-index of 0.882. The GSEA analysis indicated that several autophagy-related signaling pathways were enriched in different risk groups.

Conclusions: The lncRNAs associated with autophagy were identified, and a prediction model was developed that could be used as a prognostic predictor for prostate cancer, indicating the critical role of lncRNA in the regulation of prostate cancer autophagy regulation.

Abbreviations

TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas; LncRNA: long non-coding RNA; AUC: area under the curve; C-index: concordance index; GSEA: Gene Set Enrichment Analysis; HR: hazard ratio; KEGG: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes; LASSO: least absolute shrinkage and selection operator; PCa: prostate cancer; ROC: Receiver Operating Characteristics; C-index: concordance index.