Elevated FUS/TLS expression is negatively associated with E-cadherin expression and prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Dian Xiong; Yong-Bing Wu; Chun Jin; Ji-Jun Li; Jie Gu; Yun-Fei Liao; Xiang Long; Shu-Qiang Zhu; Hai-Bo Wu; Jian-Jun Xu; Jian-Yong Ding

doi:10.3892/ol.2018.8816

Elevated FUS/TLS expression is negatively associated with E-cadherin expression and prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Oncol Lett. 2018 Aug;16(2):1791-1800. doi: 10.3892/ol.2018.8816. Epub 2018 May 25.

Authors

Dian Xiong^{1

2}, Yong-Bing Wu¹, Chun Jin², Ji-Jun Li^{2

3}, Jie Gu², Yun-Fei Liao¹, Xiang Long¹, Shu-Qiang Zhu¹, Hai-Bo Wu¹, Jian-Jun Xu¹, Jian-Yong Ding²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330000, P.R. China.
² Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, P.R. China.
³ Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Kashgar Prefecture Second People's Hospital, Kashgar, Xinjiang 844000, P.R. China.

Abstract

Fused in sarcoma/translocated in liposarcoma (FUS/TLS), a ubiquitous and multifunctional DNA and RNA-binding protein, contributes an important function in cancer and neurodegenerative disease; however, its role in lung cancer remains unclear. In the present study, the expression of FUS/TLS in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the significance of FUS/TLS for predicting the clinical outcome of patients with NSCLC, was examined. FUS/TLS expression was investigated in NSCLC tissues and their matched adjacent non-tumorous tissues by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. Tissue microarrays representing 208 patients with NSCLC were used to determine the expression pattern and associations with FUS/TLS using immunohistochemistry. Prognostic significance was assessed by Kaplan-Meier survival estimates and log-rank tests. Data revealed that FUS/TLS expression was elevated in NSCLC tissues compared with corresponding normal tissue mRNA (9.27±0.73 vs. 6.15±0.60) and protein (3.32±0.75 vs. 0.30±0.07) levels. In tissue microarrays, FUS/TLS was highly expressed in 103 (49.5%, 103/208) NSCLC tissues compared with adjacent normal lung tissues (28.4%, 59/208). Overexpression of FUS/TLS was associated with higher tumor node metastasis stage (P=0.016), poorer differentiation (P=0.008), large tumor size (P=0.019) and predicted poor prognosis (P=0.005) in patients with NSCLC. Notably, correlation analysis revealed a significant inverse association between the expression of FUS/TLS and E-cadherin (r²=0.51; P=0.036). Furthermore, patients with NSCLC with high FUS/TLS and impaired E-cadherin expression had a notably poor prognosis (P=4.01×10^-4). Thus, the results from the present study indicate that elevated FUS/TLS expression promotes NSCLC progression. FUS/TLS, alone or in combination with E-cadherin, is a novel prognostic predictor for patients with NSCLC.

Keywords: E-cadherin; fused in sarcoma/translocated in liposarcoma; non-small cell lung cancer; prognosis; survival.