IncRNA VIM-AS1 expression is positively correlated with the prognosis and immune infiltration in lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract BackgroundStudies have reported that Long Non-coding RNA Vimentin antisense RNA1(VIM-AS1) is related to progression and prognosis in several cancers. Although the relationship between VIM-AS1 and the clinical features of lung adenocarcinoma has been described, their studies are incomplete. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis was performed to identify the role and potential clinical value of VIM-AS1 in LUAD progression.MethodsThe expression of VIM-AS1 in LUAD was identified based on Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA) and genotypic tissue expression (GTEx). Survival analysis and COX regression analysis were performed to evaluate the clinical value of VIM-AS1 in the prognosis of LUAD patients, and to construct a prognostic nomogram. Correlation and COX regression analysis were performed to filter prognosis-related VIM-AS1 co-expression genes, and to construct the correlation column chart and the prognostic risk model. Correlation analysis was also used to explore the relationship between VIM-ASI expression and LUAD immune microenvironment.ResultsVIM-AS1 expression levels were significantly downregulated in LUAD tissues and significantly associated with short OS, DSS, significant PFI, late T and pathological staging, lymph node metastasis, gender male and complete resection in LUAD patients. Decreased expression of VIM-AS1 was an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in LUAD patients. VIM-AS1 co-expressed genes SLC15A2, ZNF56, FAM76A, GNG7, UCK2, and ADIPOR2 were significantly associated with OS, DSS, and PFI in LUAD patients. The nomogram and risk models constructed based on VIM- AS1 co-expressed genes were associated with the prognosis of LUAD patients. K-M survival analysis showed that high-risk patients were significantly associated with short OS, DSS, and PFI in LUAD patients. VIM- AS1 expression was related to the estimate, immune and stromal scores, and highly associated with immune cells -TFH, Th1 cells, T cells, Tcm, B cells, T helper cells, cytotoxic cells, macrophages, pDC, iDC, aDC, mast cells, DC, Tem, NK CD56dim cells, Tgd and Th2 cells, and significantly correlated with levels of immune cell markers HLA-DPB1, HLA-DRA, CCR7, and other markers.ConclusionVIM-AS1 was significantly downregulated in LUAD tissues, which was significantly associated with poor prognosis and immune microenvironment in LUAD patients. The nomogram and risk models of VIM-AS1 were expected to be tools to assess the prognosis of LUAD patients.