Role of SLC44A3-AS1 Enhancer RNA in Esophageal Cancer Prognosis

To identify key enhancer RNAs (eRNA) in esophageal cancer through a comprehensive analysis and explore its importance in esophageal cancer.An observational study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Hubei Cancer Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, from September to October 2022.RNA-sequencing data, survival data, and clinical data for a total of 33 tumours were gathered from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) datasets. The survival-associated eRNAs were detected by means of Spearman's correlation and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses. Enhancer RNAs linked to survival rate and their target genes in esophageal cancer were screened, and a clinical correlation analysis of key eRNAs was carried out. A functional enrichment analysis was performed and the selected key eRNAs were confirmed in pan-cancer.The key eRNA was identified as SLC44A3-AS1, and patients with higher expression of SLC44A3-AS1 had worse prognosis than those with low expression. SLC44A3-AS1 expression was significantly associated with many clinical traits, namely tumour status, grade, pathological tumour, node, metastasis (TNM) stage, tumour type, etc. According to KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway enrichment results, SLC44A3 may affect the prognosis of esophageal cancer patients through the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) infection pathway. According to pan-cancer validation results, SLC44A3-AS1 was related to the survival of eight tumours. Correlations were observed between SLC44A3-AS1 and SLC44A3 in 32 types of tumours.SLC44A3-AS1 plays a key role in esophageal cancer related to prognosis, which may be a new therapeutic target for clinical exploration.SLC44A3-AS1, Enhancer RNA, Esophageal cancer, Prognosis.