Figure 4

TIAF1 is a potential target for lung cancer therapy. A. When cancer cells are transiently overexpressed with TIAF1, a portion of the expressed TIAF1 localizes on the cell membrane/cytoskeleton area or intercellular junctions (marked in red) [37], which probably assists cells to stick to each other that leads to solid tumor formation. TIAF1 is associated with stem cell pluripotency [46]. It is reasonable to postulate that when a lung cancer stem cell starts to grow, it probably needs the expression of TIAF1 to allow cells to stick to each other in order to proliferate. B. Therefore, blocking TIAF1 expression by appropriate chemicals, siRNA, or dominant negatives could result in suppression of lung cancer stem cell proliferation.