Aurora-A is a novel predictor of poor prognosis in patients with resected lung adenocarcinoma.
BACKGROUND
The Aurora-A (Aur-A) gene, a key regulator of mitosis, has been proved as an oncogene in a variety of cancers. The Aur-A overexpression has been proved correlated with aggressiveness of cancer cells. However, the frequency of Aur-A protein overexpression, as well as its association with clinicopathologic parameters and prognosis remain unclear in lung adenocarcinoma (ADC). This study tried to clarify the clinical significance of Aur-A in patients with resected lung ADC.


METHODS
A total of 142 informative patients with surgically resected lung ADC and 20 normal lung tissues were enrolled. Western blot and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were utilized to assess protein expression of Aur-A.


RESULTS
The expression of Aur-A was elevated in most of tumor tissues compared with the adjacent tissues by western blot. The IHC results showed that Aur-A protein was over-expressed in 98 of 142 (69.0%) tumor sections, while Aur-A was low-expressed in all normal lung sections. A positive correlation between Aur-A overexpression rate and ascending pathologic stages was observed (P<0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with Aur-A high expression had significantly inferior survival compared to those with Aur-A low expression. Both overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of positive overexpression patients were shorter than the negative group (P=0.036, P=0.041, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed that Aur-A expression, as an independent and significant factor for both DFS and OS, could predict a poor prognosis in patients with resected lung ADC (P=0.022, P=0.049, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
Aur-A was overexpressed in lung ADC and overexpression of Aur-A might be a novel predictor for poor prognosis and potential therapeutic target in lung ADC.
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Bo
B
Zeng
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Yiyan
Y
Lei
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Haoshuai
H
Zhu
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Shenyuan
S
Luo
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Mei
M
Zhuang
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Chunhua
C
Su
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Jianyong
J
Zou
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Lei
L
Yang
1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China ; 2 Private Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Honghe
H
Luo
Aurora-A (Aur-A); lung adenocarcinoma (ADC); prognosis