We attempted to identify prognosis-related proteins expressed in early resection lung adenocarcinomas that had higher metastatic potential. Early resection of lung adenocarcinoma tissues were collected from patients who experienced recurrence within 5 years after surgery; these patients are defined here as the poor prognosis group. From these samples, we prepared frozen tissue sections and then isolated cancerous areas by laser capture microdissection to allow extraction of cancer tissue-derived soluble proteins. Shotgun LC-MS/MS analysis detected and identified a total of 875 proteins in these cancer tissues. Relative quantitative analysis revealed that 17 proteins were preferentially expressed in the poor prognosis group relative to the good prognosis group, which consisted of patients who did not exhibit recurrence. Among them, 14-3-3 beta/alpha and calnexin were reported to be potentially involved in tumor recurrence and the malignant properties of lung cancer. Here immunological analyses confirmed disease-associated expression of these proteins. In a cell-culture model using A549, targeted depletion of either 14-3-3 beta/alpha or calnexin reduced proliferation, invasion, and migration, suggesting that both proteins are involved in determining the malignant properties of lung cancer that contribute to poor prognosis.
Keywords: 14-3-3 beta/alpha; calnexin; label-free protein relative quantification; laser capture microdissection (LCM); lung adenocarcinoma; prognosis-related protein; shotgun LC−MS/MS analysis.