Expression of poly(C)-binding protein 1 (PCBP1) in NSCLC as a negative regulator of EMT and its clinical value.

Poly (C)-binding Protein 1 (PCBP1) is a 35 kDa protein involved in a number of biological processes. Recently, the research found that PCBP1 might be involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). However, the role of PCBP1 in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) metastasis needs further elucidation. The purpose of this study was to determine whether PCBP1 could serve as a biomarker for stratification and prediction of prognosis in NSCLC as a regulator of EMT formation. In this study, PCBP1 expression was evaluated by Western blot in 8 fresh lung cancer tissues and immunohistochemistry (IHC) on 145 paraffin-embedded slices. PCBP1 was highly expressed in non-metastatic NSCLC specimens and significantly correlated with lymph node status (P < 0.001), clinical stage (P = 0.001), vimentin expression (P = 0.033) and E-cadherin expression (P = 0.042). Our study showed that the low expression of PCBP1 was correlated with decreased expression of E-cadherin and elevated expression of vimentin, which were the markers of EMT. Besides, high expression of PCBP1 was correlated with better prognosis. These findings suggested that PCBP1 might play an important role in preventing the process of EMT in NSCLC, thus be a promising therapeutic target to inhibit NSCLC metastasis.