Clinical significance of KLF15 expression in human lung adenocarcinoma

AIM: To explore the clinical significance of Krüpple-like factor 15 (KLF15) protein expression in the patients with lung adenocarcinoma for exploring the therapeutic and prognositic biomarkers of lung cancer. METHODS: Four cases of lung adenocarcinoma tissues and matched adjacent tissues were collected from our hospital, and the expression of KLF15 protein in these tissues was analyzed by Western blot. At the same time, 72 cases of archived paraffin-embedded samples and clinical data of the patients with lung adenocarcinoma were also collected. The KLF15 protein expression in the archived paraffin-embedded lung adenocarcinoma samples was detected by immunohistochemical staining. The correlations between KLF15 protein expression and clinical characteristics of the patients including prognosis were also analyzed. In addition, the KLF15 protein was up-regulated in A549 cells, and then the effects of KLF15 protein on the viability of the cells were measured by CCK-8 assay. RESULTS: The protein expression of KLF15 in the 4 cases of lung adenocarcinoma tissues was significantly lower than that in matched paracancerous tissues. Fifty-three cases of lung adenocarcinoma specimens showed low expression or no expression of KLF15 protein in total 72 cases (73.6%). The 5-year survival rate of the patients with high expression of KLF15 protein in their specimens was higher than that of the patients with the low expression of KLF15 protein (P<0.01), and the expression of KLF15 protein was significantly correlated with the pathological staging (P<0.01) and T stage (P<0.01) of the patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Furthermore, the low expression of KLF15 protein was an important poor prognostic indicator of the patients. Up-regulation of KLF15 protein in the A549 cells significantly inhibited the growth of the cells. CONCLUSION: KLF15 inhibits the growth of lung adenocarcinoma cells. It could be used as a therapeutic target and a prognostic biomarker for the patients with lung adenocarcinoma.