TRIM59 as a novel molecular biomarker to predict the prognosis of patients with NSCLC

As a member of the tripartite motif family, tripartite motif-containing protein 59 (TRIM59) serves as an E3 ubiquitin ligase in various cellular processes, including intracellular signaling, development, apoptosis, protein quality control, innate immunity, autophagy and carcinogenesis. The present study aimed to investigate the expression and prognostic value of TRIM59 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Expression of TRIM59 in patients with NSCLC was measured by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays. Datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used to further verify the expression level of TRIM59 in NSCLC, lung adenocarcinoma and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). The prognostic value of TRIM59 in NSCLC was also analyzed. Immunohistochemistry revealed that TRIM59 was primarily located in the cytoplasm of tumor cells. Analysis of TCGA datasets revealed that TRIM59 was more highly expressed in tumor tissues than in normal tissues (P<0.0001). Furthermore, the TRIM59 expression level was associated with tumor differentiation (P=0.012), while no association was observed between TRIM59 expression and any other clinicopathological parameters. However, the average overall survival rate of patients with NSCLC in the high TRIM59 expression group was significantly lower than that in the low expression group (P=0.014), especially in patients with LUSC (P=0.016) and patients with poor differentiation (P=0.033). The multivariate analysis indicated that high TRIM59 expression is an independent prognostic factor in patients with NSCLC (P=0.018) and was associated with poor prognosis in patients with NSCLC. Therefore, TRIM59 may serve as a novel molecular biomarker to predict the prognosis of patients with NSCLC.