An Autophagy-related lncRNA Prognostic Risk Model for Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common malignancy of the endocrine system and its incidence is gradually rising. Research has demonstrated a close link between autophagy and thyroid cancer. We constructed a prognostic model of autophagy-related long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) in thyroid cancer and explored its prognostic value. A total of 14,142 lncRNAs and 212 autophagy-related genes (ATGs) were obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and the Human Autophagy Database (HADb), respectively. We performed lncRNA-ATGs correlation analysis and finally obtained 1166 autophagy-associated lncRNAs. Subsequently we conducted univariate Cox regression analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis, a nine-autophagy-related lncRNAs (AC092279.1, AC096677.1, DOCK9-DT, LINC02454, AL136366.1, AC008063.1, AC004918.3, LINC02471, AL162231.2) significantly associated with prognosis was identified. Based on these autophagy-related lncRNAs, a risk model was constructed. The area under the curve (AUC) of the risk score was 0.905, proving that the accuracy of risk signature was superior. In addition, multiple regression analysis showed that risk score was a significant independent prognostic risk factor for thyroid cancer. In this study, a nine autophagy-related lncRNAs in thyroid cancer were established to predict the prognosis of thyroid cancer patients.