Computational Identification of Immune- and Ferroptosis-Related LncRNA Signature for Prognosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.
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ABSTRACT: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which were implicated in many pathophysiological processes including cancer, were frequently dysregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Studies have demonstrated that ferroptosis and immunity can regulate the biological behaviors of tumors. Therefore, biomarkers that combined ferroptosis, immunity, and lncRNA can be a promising candidate bioindicator in clinical therapy of cancers. Many bioinformatics methods, including Pearson correlation analysis, univariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis, and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis were applied to develop a prognostic risk signature of immune- and ferroptosis-related lncRNA (IFLSig). Finally, eight immune- and ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (IFLncRNA) were identified to develop and IFLSig of HCC patients. We found the prognosis of patients with high IFLSig will be worse, while the prognosis of patients with low IFLSig will be better. The results provide an efficient method of uniting critical clinical information with immunological characteristics, enabling estimation of the overall survival (OS). Such an integrative prognostic model with high predictive power would have a notable impact and utility in prognosis prediction and individualized treatment strategies.
Project description:This study aimed to construct a ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature to probe the prognosis and immune infiltration of HCC patients. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was randomly divided into two parts, with two-thirds training and one-third testing sets. Univariate, multivariate, and least absolute selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analyses were performed to establish a ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature. The prognostic signature was constructed by 6 ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (PCAT6, MKLN1-AS, POLH-AS1, LINC00942, AL031985.3, LINC00942) shows a promising clinical prediction value in patients with HCC. Patients with high-risk score indicated a poorer prognosis than patients with low-risk score were shown in the training set (p < 0.001) and testing set (p = 0.024). Principal component analysis (PCA) and nomogram were performed to verify the value of the prognostic signature. The area under curves (AUCs) for 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were 0.784, 0.726, 0.699, respectively. Moreover, TCGA revealed that immune cell subpopulations and related functions, including cytolytic activity, MHC class I, type I and type II IFN response, were significantly different between the two risk groups. Immune checkpoints such as PDCD1, CTLA4, CD44, VTCN1 were also abnormally expressed between the two risk groups. This prognostic signature based on the ferroptosis-related lncRNAs may be promising for the clinical prediction of prognosis and immunotherapeutic responses in patients with HCC.
Project description:BackgroundN6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation and ferroptosis assist long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in promoting immune escape in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the predictive value of m6A- and ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (mfrlncRNAs) in terms of immune efficacy remains unknown.MethodA total of 365 HCC patients with complete data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database were used as the training cohort, and half of them were randomly selected as the validation cohort. A total of 161 HCC patients from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database were used as external validation (ICGC cohort).ResultsWe first identified a group of specific lncRNAs associated with both m6A regulators and ferroptosis-related genes and then constructed prognosis-related mfrlncRNA pairs. Based on this, the mfrlncRNA signature was constructed using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis and Cox regression. Notably, the risk score of patients was proven to be an independent prognostic factor and was better than the TNM stage and tumor grade. Moreover, patients with high-risk scores had lower survival rates, higher infiltration of immunosuppressive cells (macrophages and Tregs), lower infiltration of cytotoxic immune cells (natural killer cells), poorer immune efficacy (both immunophenoscore and score of tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion), higher IC50, and enrichment of the induced Treg pathway, which confirmed that the mfrlncRNA signature contributed to survival prediction and risk stratification of patients with HCC.ConclusionsThe mfrlncRNA signature, which has great prognostic value, provides new clues for identifying "cold" and "hot" tumors and might have crucial implications for individualized therapy to improve the survival rate of patients with HCC.
Project description:Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent cell death process that plays important regulatory roles in the occurrence and development of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Moreover, the molecular events surrounding aberrantly expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that drive HCC initiation and progression have attracted increasing attention. However, research on ferroptosis-related lncRNA prognostic signature in patients with HCC is still lacking. In this study, the association between differentially expressed lncRNAs and ferroptosis-related genes, in 374 HCC and 50 normal hepatic samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), was evaluated using Pearson's test, thereby identifying 24 ferroptosis-related differentially expressed lncRNAs. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm and Cox regression model were used to construct and validate a prognostic risk score model from both TCGA training dataset and GEO testing dataset (GSE40144). A nine-lncRNA-based signature (CTD-2033A16.3, CTD-2116N20.1, CTD-2510F5.4, DDX11-AS1, LINC00942, LINC01224, LINC01231, LINC01508, and ZFPM2-AS1) was identified as the ferroptosis-related prognostic model for HCC, independent of multiple clinicopathological parameters. In addition, the HCC patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups according to the nine-lncRNA prognostic signature. The gene set enrichment analysis enrichment analysis revealed that the lncRNA-based signature might regulate the HCC immune microenvironment by interfering with tumor necrosis factor α/nuclear factor kappa-B, interleukin 2/signal transducers and activators of transcription 5, and cytokine/cytokine receptor signaling pathways. The infiltrating immune cell subtypes, such as resting memory CD4(+) T cells, follicular helper T cells, regulatory T cells, and M0 macrophages, were all significantly different between the high-risk group and the low-risk group as indicated in Spearman's correlation analysis. Moreover, a substantial increase in the expression of B7H3 immune checkpoint molecule was found in the high-risk group. Our findings provided a promising insight into ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in HCC and a personalized prediction tool for prognosis and immune responses in patients.
Project description:BackgroundCancer-associated metabolic reprogramming promotes cancer cell differentiation, growth, and influences the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) to promote hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression. However, the clinical significance of metabolism-related lncRNA remains largely unexplored.MethodsBased on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) dataset, we identified characteristic prognostic long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and construct metabolism-related lncRNA prognostic signature for HCC. Gender, age, grade, stage and TP53 status were used as covariates were used to assess the prognostic capacity of the characteristic lncRNA signature. Subsequently, the molecular and immune characteristics and drug sensitivity in metabolism-related lncRNA signature defined subgroups were analyzed.ResultsWe identified 34 metabolism-related lncRNAs significantly associated with the prognosis of HCC (P<0.05). Subsequently, we constructed a multigene signature based on 9 characteristics prognostic lncRNAs and classified HCC patients into high- and low-risk groups based on cutoff values. We found the lncRNA signature [hazard ratio (HR) =3.55 (2.44-5.15), P<0.001] to be significantly associated with survival. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) curves area under the curve (AUC) values for 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival were 0.811, 0.773, and 0.753, respectively. In univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses, prognostic characteristic lncRNAs were the most crucial prognostic factor besides the stage. The prognostic signature was subsequently validated in the test set. In addition, Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) analyses revealed potential biological features and signaling pathways associated with the prognostic signature. We constructed a nomogram including risk groups and clinical parameters (age, gender, grade, and stage). Calibration plots and decision curve analysis (DCA) showed that our nomogram had a good predictive performance. Finally, we found reduced expression of immune-activated cells in the high-risk group.ConclusionsThe metabolism-related lncRNA signature is a promising biomarker to distinguish the prognosis and an immune characteristic in HCC.
Project description:BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a high incidence and poor prognosis. Cuproptosis is a novel type of cell death, which differs from previously reported types of cell death such as apoptosis, autophagy, proptosis, ferroptosis, necroptosis, etc. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play multiple roles in HCC.MethodsWe downloaded information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and obtained cuproptosis-related genes from published studies. The cuproptosis-related lncRNAs were obtained by correlation analysis, and subsequently used to construct a prognostic cuproptosis-related lncRNA signature. Analyses of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the area under the curve (AUC) values and the index of concordance (c-index) curve were used to evaluate the signature. The tumor microenvironment (TME) was analyzed by ESTIMATE algorithm. The immune cell data was downloaded from the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) 2.0 database. Immune-related pathways were analyzed by single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm. Immunophenoscore (IPS) scores from The Cancer Immunome (TCIA) database were used to evaluate immunotherapy response. The "pRRophetic" was employed to screen drugs for high-risk patients. The candidate lncRNA expression levels were detected by Real Time Quantitative PCR.ResultsWe constructed a cuproptosis-related lncRNA signature containing seven lncRNAs: AC125437.1, PCED1B-AS1, PICSAR, AP001372.2, AC027097.1, LINC00479, and SLC6A1-AS1. This signature had excellent accuracy, and was independent of the stratification of clinicopathological features. Further study showed that high-risk tumors under this signature had higher TMB, fewer TME components and higher tumor purity. The tumors with high risk were not enriched in immune cell infiltration or immune process pathways, and high-risk patients had a poor response to immunotherapy. Moreover, 29 drugs such as sorafenib, dasatinib and paclitaxel were screened for high-risk HCC patients to improve their prognosis. The expression levels of the candidate lncRNAs in HCC tissue were significantly increased (except PCED1B-AS1).ConclusionsOur prognostic cuproptosis-related lncRNA signature was accurate and effective for predicting the prognosis of HCC. The immunotherapy was unsuitable for high-risk HCC patients with this signature.
Project description:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the malignant tumors with high mortality and a worse prognosis globally. Necroptosis is a programmed death mediated by receptor-interacting Protein 1 (RIP1), receptor-interacting Protein 1 (RIP3), and Mixed Lineage Kinase Domain-Like (MLKL). Our study aimed to create a new Necroptosis-related lncRNAs (NRlncRNAs) risk model that can predict survival and tumor immunity in HCC patients. The RNA expression and clinical data originated from the TCGA database. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to identify the NRlncRNAs. The LASSO-Cox regression analysis was employed to build the risk model. Next, the ROC curve and the area under the Kaplan-Meier curve were utilized to evaluate the accuracy of the risk model. In addition, based on the two groups of risk model, we performed the following analysis: clinical correlation, differential expression, PCA, TMB, GSEA analysis, immune cells infiltration, and clinical drug prediction analysis. Plus, qRT-PCR was applied to test the expression of genes in the risk model. Finally, a prognosis model covering six necroptosis-related lncRNAs was constructed to predict the survival of HCC patients. The ROC curve results showed that the risk model possesses better accuracy. The 1, 3, and 5-years AUC values were 0.746, 0.712, and 0.670, respectively. Of course, we also observed that significant differences exist in the following analysis, such as functional signaling pathways, immunological state, mutation profiles, and medication sensitivity between high-risk and low-risk groups of HCC patients. The result of qRT-PCR confirmed that three NRlncRNAs were more highly expressed in HCC cell lines than in the normal cell line. In conclusion, based on the bioinformatics analysis, we constructed an NRlncRNAs associated risk model, which predicts the prognosis of HCC patients. Although our study has some limitations, it may greatly contribute to the treatment of HCC and medical progression.
Project description:Pyroptosis is an inflammatory form of programmed cell death that is involved in various cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were recently verified as crucial mediators in the regulation of pyroptosis. However, the role of pyroptosis-related lncRNAs in HCC and their associations with prognosis have not been reported. In this study, we constructed a prognostic signature based on pyroptosis-related differentially expressed lncRNAs in HCC. A co-expression network of pyroptosis-related mRNAs-lncRNAs was constructed based on HCC data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Cox regression analyses were performed to construct a pyroptosis-related lncRNA signature (PRlncSig) in a training cohort, which was subsequently validated in a testing cohort and a combination of the two cohorts. Kaplan-Meier analyses revealed that patients in the high-risk group had poorer survival times. Receiver operating characteristic curve and principal component analyses further verified the accuracy of the PRlncSig model. Besides, the external cohort validation confirmed the robustness of PRlncSig. Furthermore, a nomogram based on the PRlncSig score and clinical characteristics was established and shown to have robust prediction ability. In addition, gene set enrichment analysis revealed that the RNA degradation, the cell cycle, the WNT signaling pathway, and numerous immune processes were significantly enriched in the high-risk group compared to the low-risk group. Moreover, the immune cell subpopulations, the expression of immune checkpoint genes, and response to chemotherapy and immunotherapy differed significantly between the high- and low-risk groups. Finally, the expression levels of the five lncRNAs in the signature were validated by quantitative real-time PCR. In summary, our PRlncSig model shows significant predictive value with respect to prognosis of HCC patients and could provide clinical guidance for individualized immunotherapy.
Project description:BackgroundFerroptosis is a novel form of regulated cell death involved in tumor progression. The role of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear.MethodsRNA-seq and clinical data for HCC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Genomic Data Commons (GDC) portal. Bioinformatics methods, including weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA), Cox regression, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis, were used to identify signature markers for diagnosis/prognosis. The tumor microenvironment, immune infiltration and functional enrichment were compared between the low-risk and high-risk groups. Subsequently, small molecule drugs targeting ferroptosis-related signature components were predicted via the L1000FWD and PubChem databases.ResultsThe prognostic model consisted of 2 ferroptosis-related mRNAs (SLC1A5 and SLC7A11) and 8 ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (AC245297.3, MYLK-AS1, NRAV, SREBF2-AS1, AL031985.3, ZFPM2-AS1, AC015908.3, MSC-AS1). The areas under the curves (AUCs) were 0.830 and 0.806 in the training and test groups, respectively. Decision curve analysis (DCA) revealed that the ferroptosis-related signature performed better than all pathological characteristics. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the risk score was an independent prognostic factor. The survival probability of low- and high-risk patients could be clearly distinguished by the principal component analysis (PCA) plot. The risk score divided HCC patients into two distinct groups in terms of immune status, especially checkpoint gene expression, which was further supported by the Gene Ontology (GO) biological process, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis. Finally, several small molecule drugs (SIB-1893, geldanamycin and PD-184352, etc) targeting ferroptosis-related signature components were identified for future reference.ConclusionWe constructed a new ferroptosis-related mRNA/lncRNA signature for HCC patients. The model can be used for prognostic prediction and immune evaluation, providing a reference for immunotherapies and targeted therapies.
Project description:BackgroundWilms tumor (WT) is a widespread urologic tumor in children. Ferroptosis, on the other hand, is a novel form of cell death associated with tumor development. In this study, we aim to explore the predictability of ferroptosis-related biomarkers in estimating prognosis in WT patients.MethodsTo determine a link between ferroptosis-related gene expression and WT prognosis, we first collected RNA sequencing data and clinical information, involving 124 WT and 6 healthy tissue samples, from the TARGET database. Next, we screened the collected information for ferroptosis-related long non-coding RNA using Cox regression analysis, and constructed a signature model, as well as a nomogram, related to prognosis. Finally, we explored a potential link between ferroptosis-related lncRNA and tumor immunity and screened for possible immune checkpoints.ResultsWe constructed a WT prognosis prediction signature containing 12 ferroptosis-related lncRNAs. The area under the curves values, from the ROC curves, predicting overall survival rates at the 1, 3-, and 5-year timepoints were 0.775, 0.867, and 0.891 respectively. Moreover, we generated a nomogram, using clinical features and risk scores, carrying a C-index value of 0.836, which suggested a high predictive value. We also demonstrated significant differences in tumor immunity between low- and high-risk WT patients, particularly in the presence of B cells, NK cells, Th1 cells, Treg cells, inflammation promoting, and type I and II IFN responses. In addition, we showed that immune checkpoints like SIRPA, ICOSLG, LAG3, PVRIG, NECTIN1, and SIRPB2 can serve as potential therapeutic targets for WT.ConclusionsBased on our analyses, we generated a ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature that can both estimate prognosis of WT patients and may provide basis for future WT therapy.
Project description:BackgroundThyroid carcinoma (THCA) is the most common endocrine-related malignant tumor. Despite the good prognosis, some THCA patients may deteriorate into more aggressive diseases, leading to poor survival. This may be alleviated by developing a novel model to predict the risk of THCA, including recurrence and survival. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent, oxidative, non-apoptotic form of cell death initially described in mammalian cells, and plays an important role in various cancers. To explore the potential prognostic value of ferroptosis in THCA, ferroptosis-related long non-coding RNAs (FRLs) were used to construct model for risk prediction of THCA.MethodsRNA-sequencing data of THCA patients and ferroptosis-related genes were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and FerrDb, respectively. A total of 502 patients with complete data were randomly separated into a training cohort and a validation cohort at the ratio of 2:1. The Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the correlation between ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) and the corresponding lncRNAs, and those meeting the screening conditions were defined as FRLs. Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and qRT-PCR were used to verify the expression level of FRLs in THCA tissues. Univariate and multivariate cox regression analysis were performed to construct a FRLs signature based on lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC) value in the training cohort, then further tested in the validation cohort and the entire cohort. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and functional enrichment analysis were used to analyze the biological functions and signal pathways related to differentially expressed genes between the high-risk and low-risk groups. Finally, the relative abundance of different tumor-infiltrating immune cells were calculated by CIBERSORT algorithm.ResultsThe patients were divided into high-risk group and low-risk group based on a 5-FRLs signature (AC055720.2, DPP4-DT, AC012038.2, LINC02454 and LINC00900) in training cohort, validation cohort and entire cohort. Through Kaplan-Meier analysis and area under ROC curve (AUC) value, patients in the high-risk group exhibited worse prognosis than patients in the low-risk group. GEO database and qRT-PCR confirmed that LINC02454 and LINC00900 were up-regulated in THCA. Univariate and multivariate cox regression analyses showed that the risk score was an independent prognostic indicator. GSEA and functional enrichment analysis confirmed that immune-related pathways against cancer were significantly activated in the low-risk THCA patients. Further analysis showed that the immune cells such as plasma cells, T cells CD8 and macrophages M1, and the expression of immune checkpoint molecules, including PD-1, PD-L1, CTLA4, and LAG3, were remarkably higher in the low-risk group.ConclusionOur study used the TCGA THCA dataset to construct a novel FRLs prognostic model which could precisely predict the prognosis of THCA patients. These FRLs potentially mediate anti-tumor immunity and serve as therapeutic targets for THCA, which provided the novel insight into treatment of THCA.