Abstract
BACKGROUND: Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is among the most prevalent malignancies. Changes to N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most common RNA modification, can affect how COAD develops. Furthermore, the involvement of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) in COAD is significant, and it exhibits a close association with m6A modification. Nevertheless, the prognostic significance of lncRNAs that are related to m6A modification in COAD remains unclear. This study aims to establish a m6A-related lncRNA pair signature and reveal its prognostic value in COAD. METHODS: The current study utilized data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to investigate the predictive significance of m6A-related lncRNA pair signatures in COAD. The identification of m6A-related lncRNAs was conducted through co-expression analysis using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Then, the lncRNA pairs related to prognosis were identified using univariate Cox regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were produced using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) penalized with Cox analysis to predict overall survival (OS) in order to build a risk score prognostic model. The relationship among the risk scoring model and clinical characteristics, immune-related variables, and medication sensitivity was examined after identifying independent prognostic factors. RESULTS: Thirty-five of the 319 lncRNA pairings associated with m6A were linked to a pattern that predicted risk ratings. It was verified that the risk score model was a reliable predictor that stood alone from clinicopathological features. Differences between high- and low-risk groups were found in clinicopathological traits, immune-related variables, and medication sensitivity analysis according to correlation analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Based on paired differentially expressed m6A-related lncRNAs, the proposed COAD prognostic model demonstrated potential clinical predictive value.