Clinical Significance of SH2B1 Adaptor Protein Expression in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

The SH2B1 adaptor protein is recruited to multiple ligand-activated receptor tyrosine kinases that playimportant role in the physiologic and pathologic features of many cancers. The purpose of this study was toassess SH2B1 expression and to explore its contribution to the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Methods:SH2B1 expression in 114 primary NSCLC tissue specimens was analyzed by immunohistochemistry andcorrelated with clinicopathological parameters and patients’ outcome. Additionally, 15 paired NSCLCbackground tissues, 5 NSCLC cell lines and a normal HBE cell line were evaluated for SH2B1 expression byRT-PCR and immunoblotting, immunofluorescence being applied for the cell lines.
Results: SH2B1 was foundto be overexpressed in NSCLC tissues and NSCLC cell lines. More importantly, high SH2B1 expression wassignificantly associated with tumor grade, tumor size, clinical stage, lymph node metastasis, and recurrencerespectively. Survival analysis demonstrated that patients with high SH2B1 expression had both poorer diseasefreesurvival and overall survival than other patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that SH2B1overexpression was an independent prognostic factor for patients with NSCLC.
Conclusions: Our findingssuggest that the SH2B1 protein may contribute to the malignant progression of NSCLC and could offer a novelprognostic indicator for patients with NSCLC.