Objective: To analyze the non-coding RNAs and mRNAs as well as signaling pathways associated with the prognosis of thyroid cancer by bioinformatics approaches.
Methods: The clinical information of 568 thyroid cancer patients along with the non-coding RNA (lncRNAs, miRNAs) and mRNA data of their tissue samples were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and differentially expressed non-coding RNAs and mRNAs were screened, and functional enrichment analysis and pathway analysis were performed on the differentially expressed mRNAs. The competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) regulatory network of lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA was constructed; Survival analysis based on the clinical information was conducted for obtaining the non-coding RNAs and mRNAs associated with the prognosis of thyroid cancer. 
Results: A total of 497 differentially expressed lncRNAs (93 up-regulated and 404 down-regulated), 72 differentially expressed miRNAs (5 up-regulated and 67 down-regulated) and 1 097 differentially expressed mRNAs (233 up-regulated and 864 down-regulated) were screened. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly enriched in the biological processes such as single-organism process, single-organism cellular process and response to stimulus, the cell function such as receptor binding, molecular function regulator, calcium ion binding, and the molecular components of cells such as cellular component, membrane and extracellular region. Pathway enrichment analysis showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly enriched in pathways such as neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and transcriptional misregulation in cancer. In the constructed ceRNA regulatory network of lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA, there were two lncRNA (MIR181A2HG, OPCML-IT1), one miRNA (miRNA-184) and two mRNA (E2F1, SALL3) were significantly related to the overall survival rate (all P<0.05).
Conclusion: The identified non-coding RNAs and mRNAs as well as signaling pathways may closely be related to the prognosis of thyroid cancer, which may also open a new avenue for studying the mechanism of the occurrence and development of thyroid cancer.