Open AccessUridine‐cytidine kinase 2 ( UCK 2): A potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for lung cancer
Author(s) -
Wu Yingjie,
Jamal Muhammad,
Xie Tian,
Sun Jiaxing,
Song Tianbao,
Yin Qian,
Li Jingyuan,
Pan Shan,
Zeng Xingruo,
Xie Songping,
Zhang Qiuping
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
cancer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.035
H-Index - 141
eISSN - 1349-7006
pISSN - 1347-9032
DOI - 10.1111/cas.14125
Subject(s) - lung cancer , cancer , oncogene , biology , medicine , pathology , oncology , cell cycle
Lung cancer has the highest morbidity and mortality among all cancers. Discovery of early diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of lung cancer can greatly facilitate the survival rate and reduce its mortality. In our study, by analyzing Gene Expression Omnibus and Oncomine databases, we found a novel potential oncogene uridine‐cytidine kinase 2 ( UCK 2 ), which was overexpressed in lung tumor tissues compared to adjacent nontumor tissues or normal lung. Then we confirmed this finding in clinical samples. Specifically, UCK 2 was identified as highly expressed in stage IA lung cancer with a high diagnostic accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve > 0.9). We also found that high UCK 2 expression was related to poorer clinicopathological features, such as higher T stage and N stage and higher probability of early recurrence. Furthermore, we found that patients with high UCK 2 expression had poorer first progression survival and overall survival than patients with low UCK 2 expression. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that UCK 2 was an independent risk factor related with worse DFS and OS. By gene set enrichment analysis, tumor‐associated biological processes and signaling pathways were enriched in the UCK 2 overexpression group, which indicated that UCK 2 might play a vital role in lung cancer. Furthermore, in cytology experiments, we found that knockdown of UCK 2 could suppress the proliferation and migration of lung cancer cells. In conclusion, our study indicated that UCK 2 might be a potential early diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for lung cancer.