Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are closely related to cancer progression. NETs-related lncRNAs play crucial roles in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) but there have been no systematic studies regarding NETs-related long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) signatures to forecast the prognosis of NSCLC patients. It's essential to build commensurate NETs-related lncRNA signatures. The expression profiles of prognostic mRNAs and lncRNAs and relevant clinical data of NSCLC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The NETs-related genes came from the results of our transcriptome RNA microarray data. The co-expression network of lncRNAs and NETs-related genes was structured to confirm NETs-related lncRNAs. The 19 lncRNAs correlated with overall survival (OS) were selected by exploiting univariate Cox regression (P < 0.05). Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression (P < 0.05) were utilized to develop a 12-NETs-related lncRNA signature. We established a risk score based on the signature, which suggested that patients in the high-risk group displayed significantly shorter OS than patients in the low-risk group (P < 0.0001, P = 0.0023 respectively in the two cohorts). The risk score worked as an independent predictive factor for OS in both univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses (HR> 1, P< 0.001). Additionally, by RT-qPCR, we confirmed that NSCLC cell lines have higher levels of the three adverse prognostic NETs-related lncRNAs than normal lung cells. The expression of lncRNAs significantly increases after NETs stimulation. In short, the 12 NETs-related lncRNAs and their model could play effective roles as molecular markers in predicting survival for NSCLC patients.
Keywords: lncRNA; neutrophil extracellular traps; non-small-cell lung cancer; prognosis.