Background: Recent studies have highlighted the important roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PCa) prognosis. However, most studies explored a limited number of lncRNAs based on small sample size. Methods: Systematic and comprehensive analysis of the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was performed to identify a panel of lncRNA signature for predicting prognosis in PCa. Results: A total of 160 PCa patients with complete clinical data were included in our study. Twelve lncRNAs were identified to be significantly associated with overall survival (OS) in PCa patients using Cox regression analysis. A risk score formula was constructed to assess the prognostic value of the lncRNA signature in PCa. Patients with high risk score had worse OS than those with low risk score. The multivariate Cox regression analyses revealed that the lncRNA signature was an independent prognostic factor. Additionally, the signature might act as an indicator to predict treatment outcome. Functional enrichment analyses showed that the lncRNAs might involve in several molecular pathways closely related with PCa such as DNA replication, pancreatic cancer and regulation of tor signaling. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated a lncRNA signature including 12 lncRNAs with the potential to be served as an independent prognostic biomarker of PCa.
Keywords: TCGA; biomarker; lncRNA; pancreatic adenocarcinoma; prognosis.