ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1604237
PU.1 upregulation is linked to improved prognosis in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Provisionally accepted
- University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany
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Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, which can currently be cured only partially. Even though the function of the transcription factor PU.1 as an oncogene has already been investigated in detail in various studies, its precise function and regulatory mechanisms in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remain to be fully elucidated.Patients with NSCLC and healthy controls were recruited at the Department of Thoracic Surgery of the University Hospital Erlangen. Tissue samples were dissected from patients who underwent lung tumor surgery and blood samples were collected from all participants.In this study, we showed that the expression of PU.1 was increased both in the blood and in the tumor region of the lung of patients with NSCLC. On a more detailed analysis, PU.1 was found increased the most in CD56 dim natural killer cells (NK cells). Furthermore, we demonstrated an increased cytotoxic potential for PU.1 expressing cells as well as improved overall and recurrence-free survival for patients with a higher expression of PU.1, suggesting a beneficial role for PU.1 in NSCLC.High expression of PU.1 associated with NK cells could lead to a beneficial outcome and survival of NSCLC patients.
Keywords: Non small cell lunc cancer, NK cells, PU.1, Recurrence free survival (RFS), Metastases free survival
Received: 01 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hohenberger, Trufa, Hartmann, Mittler, Trump, Sirbu and Finotto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Susetta Finotto, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, 91054, Bavaria, Germany
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