Identification of long non-coding RNA competing interactions and biological pathways associated with prognosis in pediatric and adolescent cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia

BACKGROUND: LncRNAs can regulate miRNAs and mRNAs by sequestering and binding them. Indeed, many researchers have reported lncRNA mediated-competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) could regulate the progression of solid tumors. However, the roles of ceRNA in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), especially in pediatric and adolescent AML, were not completely expounded. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 27 cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) patients under 18 years old with corresponding clinical data were selected from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA), which was a large sample sequencing database of RNA sequencing. We constructed a survival specific ceRNA network, and investigated its associations with patients’ clinical information by analyzing the data from TCGA. RESULTS: We identified survival specific lncRNAs, miRNAs and mRNAs, and constructed a survival specific ceRNA network of CN-AML patients and a weighted correlation network. Furthermore, we identified 4 biological pathways associated with OS and selected the most enriched pathway ‘Transcriptional misregulation in cancer’ to verify that it could accurately predict younger CN-AML patients’ prognosis to guide treatment. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully constructed a survival specific ceRNA network which could provide a new approach to lncRNA research in younger CN-AML. Importantly, we constructed a weighted correlation network to overcome the difficulty in biological interpretation of individual genes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12935-018-0621-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.