Downregulation of the neonatal Fc receptor expression in non-small cell lung cancer tissue is associated with a poor prognosis.

// Emilie Dalloneau 1, 2 , Nadine Baroukh 3 , Konstantinos Mavridis 4 , Agnes Maillet 1, 2 , Fabien Gueugnon 1, 2 , Yves Courty 1, 2 , Agnes Petit 1, 2 , Thomas Kryza 5 , Maguy Del Rio 6 , Serge Guyetant 1, 2 , Diana Carolina Cadena Castaneda 3 , Christine Dhommee 3 , Christophe Arnoult 3 , Andreas Scorilas 4 , Valerie Gouilleux-Gruart 3, 7, * , Nathalie Heuze-Vourc’h 1, 2, * 1 Universite Francois Rabelais, UMR 1100, Tours, France 2 INSERM, Centre d’Etude des Pathologies Respiratoires, UMR 1100, Tours, France 3 Universite Francois Rabelais de Tours, CNRS, GICC UMR 7292, Tours, France 4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Athens, Greece 5 Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Translational Research Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 6 Institut de Recherche en Cancerologie de Montpellier (IRCM), INSERM U1194, Montpellier, France 7 CHRU de TOURS, Laboratoire d’Immunologie, Tours, France * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Nathalie Heuze-Vourc’h, email: nathalie.vourch@med.univ-tours.fr Keywords: FcRn, non-small cell lung cancer, prognosis, marker, antitumor immunity Received: October 28, 2015     Accepted: May 14, 2016     Published: June 15, 2016 ABSTRACT Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Although the recommended tumor, node and metastasis (TNM) classification and stage determination are important to select therapeutic options for patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), additional molecular markers are required to indicate the prognosis, in particular within a specific stage, and help with the management of patients. Because neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) has recently been involved in colon cancer immunosurveillance, we measured its expression in non-cancerous and NSCLC lung tissues and evaluated its prognostic value in overall survival for patient with NSCLC. FcRn expression was determined at both mRNA and protein levels on cancerous and adjacent non-cancerous tissues from 80 NSCLC patients. In NSCLC, FcRn was mainly found in resident and tumor infiltrating immune cells. The corresponding mRNA and protein were significantly less abundant in lung tumor than non-cancerous tissue. Moreover, analysis of our cohort and datasets from the public data bases show that FCGRT mRNA down-regulation is a robust and independent, unfavorable predictive factor of NSCLC patient survival. We conclude that FCGRT mRNA expression may be a useful additional marker for immunoscoring, reflecting tumor immune system, and help in the decision-making process for NSCLC patients.