UHRF1, a Regulator of Methylation, as a Diagnostic and Prognostic Marker for Lung Cancer

Abstract

We evaluated the value of UHRF1, a regulator of methylation, as a biomarker for lung cancer. UHRF1 is expressed at higher levels in both lung adenocarcinoma (AD) and squamous cell carcinoma (SQ); however, a meta-analysis showed that UHRF1 expression is correlated with worse survival in patients with AD but not in those with SQ. UHRF1 knockdown suppressed the growth of lung cancer cell lines through G1 cell cycle arrest in some cell lines. These results suggest that UHRF1 may server as a diagnostic marker for AD and SQ and as a prognostic marker for AD in lung cancer.

Keywords:

• Lung cancer
• methylation
• biomarker

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Ling Cai and Dr. Yang Xie from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center for their valuable advice on the use of LCE. The authors also grateful to Ms. Mari Kizuki, Ms. Yumeno Ito, Ms. Nozomi Kawabe, Ms. Miho Takaba, Ms. Yasuha Togami, and Mr. Kohei Matsuoka for their excellent technical assistance. The author would like to thank Enago (www.enago.jp) for the English language review.

Author contributions

K.K., N.U., M.N., M.K., K.K., Y.K., and A.M. contributed in designing the study and conducting experiments. I. T., T.H., M.M., Y.H., and T.K. contributed in designing the study. D.G. and M.S. contributed in designing the study, conducting experiments, and preparing the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to declare.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported, in part, by both a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 18H02819 and a Challenging Research (Exploratory) 19K22617 for M. Sato from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.