Identification of key iron metabolism-related long non-coding RNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma based on bioinformatics analysis

Background: The present study explored the regulatory mechanisms and functional roles of iron metabolism-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and their potential impact on prognosis of HCC patients. Methods: : RNA-seq data and clinical information of HCC samples and normal samples were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) portal. Iron metabolism-related genes were downloaded from Reactome database and AmiGo2 database. Differential expression and correlation analysis were performed to identify iron metabolism-related differentially expressed lncRNAs (DElncRNAs). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis were used to screen the possible prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers of HCC. Results: : A total of 20 differentially expressed and iron metabolism-related genes (DEIMRG) were identified by overlapping 3746 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 86 IMRGs. Next, ARHGAP11B, LINC00205, LINC00261 and SNHG12 were screened through univariate Cox regression, and Kaplan-Meier survival curves also indicated that ARHGAP11B, LINC00205, LINC00261 and SNHG12 were related to overall survival (OS) of HCC patients in TCGA database. Interestingly, ARHGAP11B, LINC00205 and LINC00261 were identified as prognostic DEIMRGs of HCC patients after validating the survival results in ICGC portal. ROC curves showed that ARHGAP11B, LINC00205 and LINC00261 could distinguish well between normal and HCC samples. Furthermore, LINC00205 was identified as independently prognostic factor by multivariate Cox analysis combined with clinicopathological factors. Finally, a ceRNA network including 25 mRNAs, 15 miRNAs and 3 lncRNAs was successfully constructed, and the PPI network illustrated that CDC25A, CHEK1, CCNE2 and ANLN proteins interact more with other proteins. Conclusions: : In conclusion, we identified iron metabolism-related LINC00205 as a prognostic and diagnostic biomarker and investigated the potential regulatory of LINC00205, which may contribute to the treatment of HCC.