Expression Of Sox2and Oct4and Their Clinical Significance In Human Non-small-cell Lung Cancer

Objective: The aim of this study was to detect the expression of Sox2and Oct4inhuman non-small-cell lung cancer, their corresponding paracancerous tissues and lungbenign tumor tissues, and then analyse their clinical significance.Methods: We had collected65patients who underwent surgical treatment forprimary lung cancer (44cases) and lung benign tumor (21cases) with pathologicidentification in the hospital. Surgically removed specimens partly fixed in bufferedformalin and embedded in paraffin blocks for immunohistochemical analysis and partlystored in the-80℃refrigerator for RT-PCR and western blot. Expression of Sox2and Oct4were analysed in tissue samples by immunohistochemistry, Western blot, and RT-PCR.Follow-up information was available for the NSCLC patients for a period of minimum1year, including their survival condition and whether recurrence or distant metastasis hadoccurred. SPSS17.0was employed to analyze all data obtained in this study.Results: Sox2and Oct4positive immunostaining was observed in the cancer cellnuclei but negative in the precancerous tissues and human pulmonary benign tumortissues (p <0.01). Among the44cancerous tissues,31were positive for Sox2staining（70.5%）, and24were positive for Oct4(54.5%). However, when they combinedtogether, the sensitive can be significantly improved to88.64%(39/44). the expression ofOct4was significantly associated with higher TNM grade and poorer differentiationand outcome. The results of Western blot and RT-PCR were similar to immunostaining’s.Conclusion: Sox2and Oct4may act as the unite markers directing NSCLC. Itindicate that the expression of Oct4enables the tumours to have higher degree ofstemness tumour cells, which in turn results in poorer clinical outcome for patients withNSCLCs. They can be a promising target to lung SCC therapy with less side-effect.