Identification of a Three-Glycolysis-Related lncRNA Signature Correlated With Prognosis and Metastasis in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

The clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is not only a malignant disease but also an energy metabolic disease, we aimed to identify a novel prognostic model based on glycolysis-related long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) and explore its mechanisms. With the use of Pearson correlation analysis between the glycolysis-related differentially expressed genes and lncRNAs from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset, we identified three glycolysis-related lncRNAs and successfully constructed a prognostic model based on their expression. The diagnostic efficacy and the clinically predictive capacity of the signature were evaluated by univariate and multivariate Cox analyses, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, and principal component analysis (PCA). The glycolysis-related lncRNA signature was constructed based on the expressions of AC009084.1, AC156455.1, and LINC00342. Patients were grouped into high- or low-risk groups according to risk score demonstrated significant differences in overall survival (OS) period, which were validated by patients with ccRCC from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database. Univariate Cox analyses, multivariate Cox analyses, and constructed nomogram-confirmed risk score based on our signature were independent prognosis predictors. The CIBERSORT algorithms demonstrated significant correlations between three-glycolysis-related lncRNAs and the tumor microenvironment (TME) components. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated potential pathways and processes correlated with the risk model. Clinical samples validated expression levels of three-glycolysis-related lncRNAs, and LINC00342 demonstrated the most significant aberrant expression. in vitro, the general overexpression of LINC00342 was detected in ccRCC cells. After silencing LINC00342, the aberrant glycolytic levels and migration abilities in 786-O cells were decreased significantly, which might be explained by suppressed Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and reversed Epithelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT) process. Collectively, our research identified a novel three-glycolysis-related lncRNA signature as a promising model for generating accurate prognoses for patients with ccRCC, and silencing lncRNA LINC00342 from the signature could partly inhibit the glycolysis level and migration of ccRCC cells.