A four immune-related long noncoding RNAs signature as predictors for cervical cancer

The progression, metastasis, and prognosis of cervical cancer (CC) is influenced by the tumor immune microenvironment. Studies proved that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to engage in cervical cancer development, especially immune-related lncRNAs, have emerged crucial in the tumor immune process. This study was set out to identify an immune-related lncRNA signature. In total, 13,838 lncRNA expression profiles and 328 immune genes were acquired from the clnical data of 306 CC tissues and 3 non-CC tissues. From the 433 identified immune-related lncRNAs, 4 candidate immune-related lncRNAs (SOX21-AS1, AC005332.4, NCK1-DT, LINC01871) were considered independent indicators of cervical cancer prognosis through the univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, and they were used to construct a prognostic and survival lncRNA signature model followed by the bootstrap method for further verification. Kaplan-Meier curves illustrated that cervical cancer patients could be divided into high-risk and low-risk groups with significant differences (P = 2.052e - 05), and the discrepancy of immune profiles between these two risk groups was illustrated by principal components analysis. Taken together, the novel survival predictive model created by the four immune-related lncRNAs showed promising clinical prediction value in cervical cancer.