Comprehensive analysis of the prognostic signature and tumor microenvironment infiltration characteristics of cuproptosis-related lncRNAs for patients with colon adenocarcinoma.

Background: Cuproptosis, a newly described method of regulatory cell death (RCD), may be a viable new therapy option for cancers. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been confirmed to be correlated with epigenetic controllers and regulate histone protein modification or DNA methylation during gene transcription. The roles of cuproptosis-related lncRNAs (CRLs) in Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD), however, remain unknown. Methods: COAD transcriptome data was obtained from the TCGA database. Thirteen genes associated to cuproptosis were identified in published papers. Following that, correlation analysis was used to identify CRLs. The cuproptosis associated prognostic signature was built and evaluated using Lasso regression and COX regression analysis. A prognostic signature comprising six CRLs was established and the expression patterns of these CRLs were analyzed by qRT-PCR. To assess the clinical utility of prognostic signature, we performed tumor microenvironment (TME) analysis, mutation analysis, nomogram generation, and medication sensitivity analysis. Results: We identified 49 prognosis-related CRLs in COAD and constructed a prognostic signature consisting of six CRLs. Each patient can be calculated for a risk score and the calculation formula is: Risk score =TNFRSF10A-AS1 * (-0.2449) + AC006449.3 * 1.407 + AC093382.1 *1.812 + AC099850.3 * (-0.0899) + ZEB1-AS1 * 0.4332 + NIFK-AS1 * 0.3956. Six CRLs expressions were investigated by qRT-PCR in three colorectal cancer cell lines. In three cohorts, COAD patients were identified with different risk groups, with the high-risk group having a worse prognosis than the low-risk group. Furthermore, there were differences in immune cell infiltration and tumor mutation burden (TMB) between the two risk groups. We also identified certain drugs that were more sensitive to the high-risk group: Paclitaxel, Vinblastine, Sunitinib and Elescloml. Conclusions: Our findings may be used to further investigate RCD, comprehension of the prognosis and tumor microenvironment infiltration characteristics in COAD.