食道癌是一种高度致命且预后不良的恶性肿瘤，分子生物标志物的鉴定对于改善诊断和治疗至关重要。长链非编码RNA (lncRNAs) 在食道癌的发展和进展中起着重要作用。然而，由于生物实验的耗时，目前只发现了少数与食道癌相关的lncRNAs。目前，计算方法已经成为识别和表征lncRNAs以及预测其潜在功能的强有力工具。因此，本文提出了一种基于变压器的方法来识别与食道癌相关的lncRNAs。实验结果显示，该方法的AUC和AUPR优于其他比较方法，AUC为0.87，AUPR为0.83，而且鉴定的lncRNA靶标与食道癌密切相关。我们重点关注食道癌相关的lncRNAs在免疫微环境中的作用，并充分探索lncRNAs调控的靶基因的功能。富集分析显示预测的靶基因与食道癌的发生、发展和预后相关的多个通路有关。这不仅证明了该方法的有效性，同时也表明了预测结果的精确性。版权所有 © 2023. Elsevier Ltd. 发表。

Esophageal cancer is a highly lethal malignancy with poor prognosis, and the identification of molecular biomarkers is crucial for improving diagnosis and treatment. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play important roles in the development and progression of esophageal cancer. However, due to the time cost of biological experiments, only a small number of lncRNAs related to esophageal cancer have been discovered. Currently, computational methods have emerged as powerful tools for identifying and characterizing lncRNAs, as well as predicting their potential functions. Therefore, this article proposes a transformer-based method for identifying esophageal cancer-related lncRNAs. Experimental results show that the AUC and AUPR of this method are superior to other comparison methods, with an AUC of 0.87 and an AUPR of 0.83, and the identified lncRNA targets are closely associated with esophageal cancer. We focus on the role of esophageal cancer-related lncRNAs in the immune microenvironment, and fully explore the functions of the target genes regulated by lncRNAs. Enrichment analysis shows that the predicted target genes are related to multiple pathways involved in the occurrence, development, and prognosis of esophageal cancer. This not only demonstrates the effectiveness of the method but also indicates the accuracy of the prediction results.Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.