Genome-Wide Profiling Reveals the Landscape of Prognostic Alternative Splicing Signatures in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Keywords: PDAC, Alternative Splicing, prognosis, splicing factor, Correlation

Received: 18 Mar 2019; Accepted: 28 May 2019. 

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive lethal malignancy. Identification of potential alternative splicing (AS) prognostic indicators and related splicing pathways for the prediction of PDAC outcomes are lacking, but urgently needed. A combined strategy of prognostic assessment and computational biology was performed to investigate survival-related AS signatures and their correlation with splicing factors. The prognostic signatures of each type were conducted according to the top ten prognosis-related AS events, which were filtered through univariate Cox regression analysis. A time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed to access the predictive accuracy of prognostic signatures. The independent predictors were identified using multivariate Cox regression analysis. Potential regulation mechanisms between splicing factors and splicing events were investigated through regulatory networks and correlation analyses. A total of 915 overall survival (OS) and 480 recurrence-free survival (RFS)-related AS events were identified in 120 patients with PDAC. The independent prognostic signatures for each type displayed favorable accuracy for the prediction of OS and short-term RFS (area under the curves were >0.6), except for the Exclusive Exons type. The splicing regulatory networks showed potential interactions between splicing factors and AS parent genes. Moreover, a positive relationship was detected among each splicing factor and Percent Spliced In values of prognostic signatures. Our results provided a view of the landscape of prognosis-related AS events and reveal the potential correlation between splicing factors and prognostic signatures, which may represent novel outcome-predictor markers and opportunities for targeted therapy for PDAC.