A novel method to identify and characterize personalized functional driver lncRNAs in cancer samples

Cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease, and different individuals of the same cancer type can display different therapeutic effects and prognosis. Genetic variation of long non-coding RNA is the key factor driving tumor development, and plays an important role in genetic and biological heterogeneity. Therefore, it is of great significance to identify lncRNA as a driving factor in the non-coding region and explain its function in tumors for revealing the pathogenesis of cancer. In this study, we developed an integrated method to identify Personalized Functional Driver lncRNAs (PFD-lncRNAs) by integrating the DNA copy number data, gene expression data, and the biological subpathways information. Then, we applied the method to identify 2695 PFD-lncRNAs in 5334 samples across 19 cancer types. We performed an analysis of the association between PFD-lncRNAs and drug sensitivity, which provides medication guidance in disease therapy and drug discovery in the individual. Our research is of great significance for elucidating the biological roles of lncRNA genetic variation in cancer, revealing the related mechanism of cancer, and providing novel insights for individualized medicine.