ELF5 promotes non-small cell lung cancer cell proliferation through regulating the expression of APC2

Abstract ELF5 is known to regulate the specification and differentiation of epithelial cells in the embryonic lung. However, the pathological function of ELF5 in lung cancer remains elusive. In the present study, ELF5 expression was found to be significantly higher in lung adenocarcinoma than that in corresponding adjacent normal tissues. We performed cell and animal experiments to investigate the role of ELF5 in lung adenocarcinoma cells. The results indicated that the overexpression of ELF5 increased the proliferation of lung adenocarcinoma cells, on the contrary, the reduction of ELF5 decreased the proliferation of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Mechanistically, we advance ELF5 promoted lung cancer cell proliferation through inhibiting APC2 and increased Cyclin D1 expression which is a critical downstream target of Wnt pathway. Taken together, these findings supported that ELF5 plays an essential role in the proliferation of lung adenocarcinoma cells and may act as a candidate of therapeutic target to treat lung adenocarcinoma.