High expression of Aurora

Aurora kinase B (Aurora-B) is a crucial regulator of accurate mitosis. Abnormal Aurora-B expression is associated with aneuploidy and has been implicated in the pathogenesis and drug resistance in a variety of human cancers. However, little evidence is available regarding the role of Aurora-B in regulating drug response in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is the most common type of lung cancer, and is characterized with poor prognosis and high mortality. In the current study, we investigated the association of Aurora-B with the prognosis of NSCLC patients, and we also used the latest CRISPR/Cas9 system to explore the regulatory role of Aurora-B in NSCLC cells developing resistance to cisplatin (CDDP) and paclitaxel. We found that Aurora-B was correlated with significantly reduced overall survival and disease-free survival in NSCLC patients. Aurora-B overexpression was also observed in NSCLC cells developing impaired response to both CDDP and paclitaxel. Moreover, we found, for the first time, that Aurora-B may impair NSCLC drug response by disturbing cell proliferation and inhibiting p53-related DNA damage response and apoptotic pathway, while the knockout of Aurora-B resensitized NSCLC cells to chemo drugs by ensuring correct chromosome segregation and restoring p53 expression. Our results demonstrated the association of Aurora-B with chemoresistance in NSCLC, which may finally contribute to the poor prognosis of NSCLC patients. We also suggested Aurora-B as a promising therapeutic target in NSCLC treatment