NCAPG2 promotes tumour proliferation by regulating G2/M phase and associates with poor prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma

NCAPG2 is a component of the condensin II complex and contributes to chromosome segregation via microtubule-kinetochore attachment during mitosis. It is well known that NCAPG2 plays a critical role in cell mitosis; however, the role of altered NCAPG2 expression and its transcriptional regulatory function in cancer development remains mostly unknown. Here, for the first time we reported that NCAPG2 was evidently increased in non-small cell lung cancer tissues compared to adjacent normal lung tissues. Clinicopathological data analysis showed that NCAPG2 overexpression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and pathologic-Tumour Nodes Metastasen stages, and was an independent prognostic factor in lung adenocarcinoma patients. Moreover, siRNA-mediated knockdown of NCAPG2 could inhibit tumour cell growth of lung adenocarcinoma cells (A549 and H1299) in vitro and could significantly lead to cell cycle arrest in the G2 phase. Furthermore, we found that NCAPG2 silencing significantly decreased the expression levels of G2/M phase cell cycle-related protein expressions (Cyclin B1, Cdc2) and increased the expression levels of p27 and p21 through Western blot analysis. Taken together, we demonstrated that increased NCAPG2 expression could regulate cell proliferation and identified as a poor prognostic biomarker in lung adenocarcinoma.