MIB2 promotes the progression of non-small cell lung cancer by regulating cell cycle control pathways

BACKGROUND: Although numerous measures have been used to improve the outcome of lung cancer patients, lung cancer, as the second most common diagnosed cancer, is still the main cause of cancer death. It becomes increasingly urgent for us to deeply deplore the molecular mechanism of lung cancer and to discover the potential therapeutic targets. In our study, we are dedicated to discovering the role of MIB2 in lung cancer development. METHODS: The public databases were used to compare the expression level of MIB2 in cancer and non-cancer tissue. We analyzed the expression of MIB2 in lung cancer samples by performing Rt-PCR and western blot. We carried out CCK8 and clone assays to study the influence of MIB2 in lung cancer proliferation. The transwell assays and wound healing assays were implemented to study the function of MIB2 in metastasis and invasion. Proteins of cell cycle control pathways are detected to verify the potential mechanism of MIB2 in lung cancer progression. RESULTS: MIB2 is up regulated in lung cancer tissue compared to adjacent normal lung tissue according to both public databases and our clinical lung cancer samples. Knockdown of MIB2 inhibits proliferation, metastasis, and invasion of lung cancer cell lines. Cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases (CDK) including CDK2, CDK4, and cyclinB1 were down regulated in MIB2 knockdown cells. CONCLUSION: Our results prove that MIB2 acts as a driver in NSCLC tumorigenesis by regulating cell cycle control pathways. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13258-023-01423-4.