stage lung cancer. NSCLC patients with low hPAF1C expression
levels showed significantly better overall survival (Fig. 1). To our
knowledge, this study is the first one to describe the role of hPAF1C
in NSCLC prognosis.
The oncogene MYC family members encode phosphoproteins
involved in cell growth and its dysregulation is linked to tumorigenesis.
The MYC family includes N-MYC, C-MYC and L-MYC proteins,
which all have a Helix-loop-Helix motif, and act as
transcription factors. MYC proteins are normally involved in cell
proliferation by regulating the expression of various regulators of
the cell cycle [1]. The amplification of MYC genes have been
demonstrated in tumor samples or cancer cell lines of several
cancers, which including lung cancer [8,9]. In this report, the
expression of hPAF1 was examined to be positively correlated with
c-MYC in tumor samples of NSCLC patients and in several NSCLC
cell lines (Fig. 2), providing an interesting link for hPAF1C in the
pathology of NSCLC.