Machine learning-based identification of a novel prognosis-related long noncoding RNA signature for gastric cancer

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignancies with a poor prognosis. Immunotherapy has attracted much attention as a treatment for a wide range of cancers, including GC. However, not all patients respond to immunotherapy. New models are urgently needed to accurately predict the prognosis and the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with GC. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in the occurrence and progression of cancers. Recent studies have identified a variety of prognosis-related lncRNA signatures in multiple cancers. However, these studies have some limitations. In the present study, we developed an integrative analysis to screen risk prediction models using various feature selection methods, such as univariate and multivariate Cox regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), stepwise selection techniques, subset selection, and a combination of the aforementioned methods. We constructed a 9-lncRNA signature for predicting the prognosis of GC patients in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort using a machine learning algorithm. After obtaining a risk model from the training cohort, we further validated the model for predicting the prognosis in the test cohort, the entire dataset and two external GEO datasets. Then we explored the roles of the risk model in predicting immune cell infiltration, immunotherapeutic responses and genomic mutations. The results revealed that this risk model held promise for predicting the prognostic outcomes and immunotherapeutic responses of GC patients. Our findings provide ideas for integrating multiple screening methods for risk modeling through machine learning algorithms.