Abstract
Accumulating evidence implies that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a crucial role in predicting survival for Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. This study aims to capture the current research hotspots of HCC, based on the analysis of publications related to HCC research from 2013 to 2017, and to identify a novel lncRNA signature for HCC prognosis through the data mining in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). "Prognosis" and "biomarker" were located in the core of the HCC research hotspot. Moreover, long noncoding RNA was the top one research frontier in HCC research. The associations between survival outcome and the expression of lncRNAs were evaluated by the univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. Four lncRNAs (LINC00261, TRELM3P, GBP1P1, and CDKN2B-AS1) were identified as significantly correlated with overall survival (OS). These four lncRNAs were gathered as a single prognostic signature. There was a significant positive correlation between HCC patients with low-risk scores and overall survival (HR = 1.802, 95%CI [1.224-2.652], P = .003). Further analysis suggested that the prognostic value of this four-lncRNA signature was independent in clinical features. The enrichment analysis of prognostic lncRNA-related gene was performed to find out the related pathways. Our study indicates that this novel lncRNA expression signature may be a useful biomarker of the prognosis for HCC patients, based on bioinformatics analysis.