Progression and prognostic value of ECT2 in non-small-cell lung cancer and its correlation with PCNA

Abstract

Purpose

Epithelial cell transforming sequence 2 (ECT2) is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor, which is involved in cell division regulation and cell cycle modulation. Recent evidence indicates that ECT2 is overexpressed in many human cancers. However, the exact prognostic value of ECT2 in lung cancer has not been elucidated.

Patients and methods

In the current study, we performed correlation and prognosis analyses using public databases and conducted immunohistochemical staining in tissue microarrays, using samples from 204 lung cancer patients with survival data.

Results

We found that the expression of ECT2 was markedly increased in lung cancer tissues compared with normal tissues. Moreover, we demonstrated that the expression of ECT2 was related to tumor cell differentiation degree, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and prognosis in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A correlation analysis indicated that ECT2 levels were significantly correlated with proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) levels in NSCLC. Furthermore, Kaplan–Meier analyses revealed that high ECT2 expression was associated with unfavorable overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in NSCLC patients.

Conclusion

Taken together, these results indicate that the overexpression of ECT2 contributes to tumor invasion and progression, suggesting that ECT2 is a potential prognostic marker for NSCLC patients.

Keywords:

• epithelial cell transforming sequence 2
• ECT2
• non-small cell lung cancer
• progression
• prognosis
• proliferating cell nuclear antigen
• PCNA

Supplementary materials

Figure S1 Overexpression of ECT2 mRNA predicted poor survival.

Notes: Kaplan–Meier curve of patients with low or high ECT2 expression. Median of mRNA expression was used to divide patients into subgroups. (A) Overall survival; (B) progression-free survival; (C) overall survival in ADC; (D) progression-free survival in ADC; (E) overall survival in SQC; (F) progression-free survival in SQC.

Abbreviations: ECT2, epithelial cell transforming sequence; HR, hazard ratio; ADC, adenocarcinoma; SQC, squamous cell lung cancer.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 81572608, 81172422, and 81874120) and the Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau (grant No. 2017060201010170).

Author contributions

XB carried out the experiments and drafted the manuscript. MY, SY and XX participated in data collection, analysis and IHC scoring; XZ and KW designed the study, evaluated the results, and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed toward data analysis, drafting and critically revising the paper and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.