eEF1A1 Overexpression Enhances Tumor Progression and Indicates Poor Prognosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Liver is a major contributor of protein production physiologically. The aberrant state of protein synthesis leads to tumor progression. Eukaryotic elongation factor 1 alpha 1 (eEF1A1) is a major member of the eukaryotic elongation factor family that regulates protein synthesis. Although eEF1A1 plays an essential role in controlling the cell fate, its clinical significance in tumor development and progression has not been reported. Here, we aimed to uncover the expression and prognostic significance of eEF1A1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Our data indicated that eEF1A1 expression was elevated in HCC cell lines and clinical samples at both the mRNA and protein levels. Immunohistochemistry revealed that eEF1A1 expression was upregulated in HCC samples compared with corresponding non-tumorous tissues. In 50 HCC cases with portal vein embolus, higher eEF1A1 immunoreactivity was detected in tumor metastases compared with the primary lesions. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that increased eEF1A1 expression was closely associated with unfavorable post-surgical overall and disease-free survival in 453 HCC patients. Moreover, multivariate analysis indicated eEF1A1 as an independent predictor for overall and disease-free survival. Collectively, our study suggests eEF1A1 as a novel prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target for HCC patients.

Contradictory mRNA and protein misexpression of EEF1A1 in ductal breast carcinoma due to cell cycle regulation and cellular stress

“…In sharp contrast to reduced EEF1A1 mRNA expression, we observed that at the protein level, eEF1α1 is overexpressed in breast carcinomas, in particular in ER+, PR+ and lymph node-negative tumors. This is consistent with observations in hepatocellular carcinomas 48 , 49 . We also find that in breast cancer cell lines, eEF1α1 levels correlate with protein levels of HSP90α 1 and HSP90α 2 , which are markers of the heat shock response (HSR).…”

Expression of EEF1A1 Is Associated with Prognosis of Patients with Colon Adenocarcinoma

“…Several studies have revealed that EEF1A is not only a translation factor but also involved in many non-canonical functions including oncogenesis, protein degradation, pro-apoptotic or anti-apoptotic activity, and cytoskeleton modulation [10,11,12,13]. Notably, many studies have shown that EEF1A is a prognostic factor for several solid tumors such as ovary [11,14], breast [15,16,17], lung [18], pancreas [19,20], stomach [21,22], prostate [23], and liver cancers [24,25]. Based on the previous results from the Wx neural network-based feature selection algorithm and those reporting the role of EEF1A1 in human solid cancer, we hypothesized that EEF1A1 is related to the prognosis of patients with colon adenocarcinoma.…”

Classical and Deep Learning Paradigms for Detection and Validation of Key Genes of Risky Outcomes of HCV

“…EEF1A1 is a well-known HCC biomarker and is considered one of the top 20 genes related to human hepatocarcinoma cell lines. EEF1A1 has been reported as a novel prognosis biomarkers for liver cancer using a multivariate analysis done in [55]. In our experiment, EEF1A1 was retrieved as a down-regulated gene with a significant p value, as illustrated by Figure 7.…”