Background: Eukaryotic elongation factor 1 alpha-2 (eEF1A2) has been recently shown to be a putative oncogene of lung cancer.
Materials and methods: We analyzed the expression and prognostic significance of eEF1A2 in 69 primary non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cases. We also suppressed eEF1A2 expression using RNA interference and then analyzed cell proliferation, migration and invasion of five adenocarcinoma cell lines.
Results: eEF1A2 protein expression was positive in 84.1%. Negative immunostaining for eEF1A2 was shown to be an independent prognostic factor and significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis. There was no significant correlation between eEF1A2 protein and mRNA expression levels. Among the five examined cell lines, transfection of eEF1A2 siRNA inhibited cell migration in only one cell line while it did not change cell proliferation and invasion.
Conclusion: Negative immunostaining of eEF1A2 predicted for poor prognosis of NSCLC. The mechanism of this result could not be elucidated by cell proliferation, migration and invasion assays.
Keywords: NSCLC; eEF1A2; immunohistochemistry; lymphnode metastasis; survival analysis.