Development and internal validation of a nine-lncRNA prognostic signature for prediction of overall survival in colorectal cancer patients

Zhiqiao Zhang; Qingbo Liu; Peng Wang; Jing Li; Tingshan He; Yanling Ouyang; Yiyan Huang; Weidong Wang

doi:10.7717/peerj.6061

Development and internal validation of a nine-lncRNA prognostic signature for prediction of overall survival in colorectal cancer patients

PeerJ. 2018 Dec 6:6:e6061. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6061. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Zhiqiao Zhang^#¹, Qingbo Liu^#², Peng Wang¹, Jing Li¹, Tingshan He¹, Yanling Ouyang¹, Yiyan Huang¹, Weidong Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Infectious Diseases, Shunde Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shunde District, Guangdong, China, Shunde, Guangdong, China.
² Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Shunde Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shunde, Guangdong, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Colorectal cancer remains a serious public health problem due to the poor prognosis. In the present study, we attempted to develop and validate a prognostic signature to predict the individual mortality risk in colorectal cancer patients.

Materials and methods: The original study datasets were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. The present study finally included 424 colorectal cancer patients with wholly gene expression information and overall survival information.

Results: A nine-lncRNA prognostic signature was built through univariate and multivariate Cox proportional regression model. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curves in model cohort demonstrated that the Harrell's concordance indexes of nine-lncRNA prognostic signature were 0.768 (95% CI [0.717-0.819]), 0.778 (95% CI [0.727-0.829]) and 0.870 (95% CI [0.819-0.921]) for 1-year, 3-year and 5-year overall survival respectively. In validation cohort, the Harrell's concordance indexes of nine-lncRNA prognostic signature were 0.761 (95% CI [0.710-0.812]), 0.801 (95% CI [0.750-0.852]) and 0.883 (95% CI [0.832-0.934]) for 1-year, 3-year and 5-year overall survival respectively. According to the median of nine-lncRNA prognostic signature score in model cohort, 424 CRC patients could be stratified into high risk group (n = 212) and low risk group (n = 212). Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that the overall survival rate of high risk group was significantly lower than that of low risk group (P < 0.001).

Discussion: The present study developed and validated a nine-lncRNA prognostic signature for individual mortality risk assessment in colorectal cancer patients. This nine-lncRNA prognostic signature is helpful to evaluate the individual mortality risk and to improve the decision making of individualized treatments in colorectal cancer patients.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; LncRNA; Overall survival; Prediction; Prognosis.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Guangdong Provincial Health Department and the Guangdong Provincial Financial Department. The grant numbers were: B2018237 (grant recipient: Zhiqiao Zhang) and A2016450 (grant recipient: Zhiqiao Zhang). The total capital was RMB 15000. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.