Prognostic significance of an autophagy-related long non-coding RNA signature in patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Traditional clinicopathological indices are insufficient in predicting the prognosis of patients diagnosed with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC/OPSCC). Notably, autophagy and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate the development and progression of various types of cancer. The present study aimed to assess the association between autophagy-related lncRNAs and the prognosis of patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC. Gene sequencing and clinicopathological data of patients with OSCC/OPSCC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database, while gene set functional classification was downloaded from the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis database. Out of the 413 transcriptome data samples and 402 clinicopathological data samples retrieved, a total of nine autophagy-related lncRNAs, including PTCSC2, AC099850.3, LINC01963, RTCA-AS1, AP002884.1, UBAC2-AS1, AL512274.1, MIR600HG and AL354733.3, were screened. This was geared towards establishing a signature through gene co-expression network, univariate and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator Cox regression analyses. Based on this signature, the patients were subdivided into a high-risk group and a low-risk group. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the overall survival of the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. Furthermore, principal components analysis demonstrated that the patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC could be distinguished into low-survival and high-survival groups according to the signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses of clinicopathological data and the signature revealed that the signature could potentially be used as an independent prognostic factor for OSCC/OPSCC. In addition, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR analysis of clinical samples demonstrated the validity of the signature. In summary, the present study revealed that the signature based on autophagy-related lncRNAs potentially acts as an independent prognostic indicator for patients with OSCC/OPSCC. Furthermore, it promotes research on targeted diagnosis and treatment of patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC.