Abstract
Background Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common type of lung cancer. Transducin-like Enhancer of split (TLE) family proteins repress transcription by multiple mechanisms. The prognostic role of TLEs in LUAD is still unclear. Methods We took TCGA dataset to analyze the relationship between the expression of TLEs and LUAD outcome. Results The expression of TLEs were different between 59 normal and 513 tumor samples. High TLE1 and low TLE2 were associated with poor PFS and OS (all p<0.050). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that high TLE1 and low TLE2 were independent risk factors. Moreover, the combination of TLE1 and TLE2 was a better tool in prognostication. Conclusions High TLE1 and low TLE2 expressions are independent adverse prognostic factors and can be used as prognostic biomarkers in LUAD.