Annexin A2 Silencing Inhibits Proliferation and Epithelial-to-mesenchymal Transition through p53-Dependent Pathway in NSCLCs

Annexin A2 has been involved in cancer cell adhesion, invasion and metastasis. However, the exact function and mechanism of Annexin A2 in tumor progression of NSCLCs have not been elucidated. In this study, we showed that Annexin A2 was evidently overexpressed in human NSCLCs cell lines and NSCLCs tissues. Clinicopathologic analysis showed that Annexin A2 expression was significantly correlated with clinical stage, and lymph node metastasis. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with high Annexin A2 expression had poorer overall survival rates than those with low Annexin A2 expression. Moreover, we found that knockdown of Annexin A2 significantly suppressed cell proliferation and invasion of NSCLCs cells. Mechanistically, our studies showed that knockdown of Annexin A2 increased the expression of p53, which in turn, induced cell cycle G2 arrest and inhibited epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Taken together, these data suggest that Annexin A2 plays an important role in NSCLCs progression, which could serve as a potential prognosis marker and a novel therapeutic target for NSCLCs.