EXPRESSION OF PKM2 IN NSCLC AND ITS CORRELATION WITH CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL FEATURES AND PROGNOSIS

WenRong Yang*, Lin Chen**,#, Jianyuan Cha***, Xiaying Peng**, Zhuang Li*, Aimin Li*, Lijie Yang*

*Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dali University, Dali, PR China - **Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, PR China - ***Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dali University, Dali, PR China

Objective: To investigate the expression of PKM2 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its correlation with clinicopathological features and prognosis. 

Methods: From March 2017 to June 2018, 171 cases of NSCLC tissue and 28 normal para-cancer tissue were randomly selected by the thoracic surgery department of our hospital. Immunohistochemical staining was performed after extracting total RNA from the NSCLC tissue and adjacent tissue. The expression of M2 pyruvate kinase (PKM2) in NSCLC tissue and adjacent tissue was detected by immunohistochemistry. The relationship between PKM2 and clinicopathological features in NSCLC tissue was analysed. The patients were followed up by telephone and outpatient review to analyse the relationship between PKM2 and NSCLC patients. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to analyse independent risk factors affecting NSCLC patients.

Results: The expression level of PKM2 in NSCLC tissue was significantly higher than that in normal adjacent tissue (P < .05). The expression of PKM2 in NSCLC tissue was associated with TNM staging and lymph node metastasis (P < .05). The expression of PKM2 in NSCLC tissue was not related to age, gender, alcohol consumption, smoking, or differentiation (P > .05). The 5-year survival rate of patients with high PKM2 expression was 36/117 (31.03%). This was significantly lower than that of patients with low PKM2 expression 29/54 (55.18%) (P < .05). High expression of PKM2 is an independent risk factor affecting the survival of patients with NSCLC; while the TNM stage and lymph node metastasis are risk factors for the overall survival of patients with NSCLC.

Conclusion: The expression of PKM2 protein in NSCLC tissue is significantly higher than that in adjacent tissue, and its expression level is related to TNM stage and lymph node metastasis. This suggests that the high expression of PKM2 protein may promote the development of tumour cells. If so, the high expression of PKM2 protein may be an important reference index for evaluating the prognosis of patients with NSCLC. PKM2 is expected to become a new target to treat NSCLC.