Novel long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) panel as biomarkers for prognosis in lung squamous cell carcinoma via competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network analysis

BACKGROUND: The recently discovered competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism is considered to be actively involved in the regulation of gene expression. Such process may play a significant role in the development and evolvement of cancer. This study further explores the connection between the ceRNA mechanism and the lung squamous cell carcinoma prognosis. METHODS: We started with obtaining the RNA-seq [including long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), mRNA and microRNA (miRNA)] data of lung squamous cell carcinoma from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and then analyzed the regulation of ceRNA network in lung squamous cell carcinoma. Bioinformatics tools based on R script were deployed. RESULTS: Firstly, we found that three miRNAs, including hsa-miR-2278, hsa-miR-3176 and hsa-miR-3654 formed the core of ceRNA network of lung squamous cell carcinoma. Moreover, after unsupervised training of the ceRNA network, three miRNAs were closely correlated in the network. In detail, AL590226, AL090044 and LINC01352 could interact with miR-2278; AL360219 and AC092071 could interact with miR-3654; AC010976 could interact with miR-3176. The above six lncRNAs altogether, could be used as a biomarker panel to predict the prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that these six lncRNAs may be potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of lung squamous cell carcinoma, which could potentially benefit the patients in the future.