Expression of FOXJ1 in hepatocellular carcinoma: Correlation with patients' prognosis and tumor cell proliferation

Abstract

FOXJ1 is a member of the forkhead box (FOX) family of transcription factors. Recent studies suggested that FOXJ1 may function as a tumor suppressor gene in breast cancer. To investigate the potential roles of FOXJ1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), expression of FOXJ1 was first examined in eight paired frozen HCC and adjacent noncancerous liver tissues by Western blot, and we found that FOXJ1 was upregulated in HCC specimens. In addition, immunohistochemistry was performed to confirm our results in 108 HCC samples. Moreover, we also evaluated its relation with clinicopathological variables and the prognostic significance. The data showed that high expression of FOXJ1 was associated with histological grade (P < 0.001), and FOXJ1 was positively correlated with proliferation marker Ki‐67 (P < 0.01). Univariate analysis suggested that FOXJ1 expression was associated with poor prognosis (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis indicated that tumor grade (P < 0.0001), metastasis (P = 0.0451), tumor size (P = 0.0459), FOXJ1 (P = 0.0011), and Ki‐67 (P = 0.0006) were independent prognostic markers for HCC. Furthermore, we noted that there existed the change of the level of FOXJ1 subcellular localization during cell‐cycle transition in HepG2 cells by immunofluorescence and cell fractionation. Besides, we employed FOXJ1 overexpression/knockdown approaches to investigate the effects of FOXJ1 on HCC cell proliferation and cell‐cycle distribution and found that overexpression of FOXJ1 can promote tumor cell proliferation and cell‐cycle transition. Our results suggested that FOXJ1 was overexpressed in HCCs and associated with histological grade and poor prognosis. Overexpression of FOXJ1 was also involved in tumor cell proliferation and cell‐cycle progression in HCC cell lines. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Forkhead box J1 expression is upregulated and correlated with prognosis in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma

“…For example, a recent study indicated that FOXJ1 expression was increased and associated with aggressive characteristics in hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, FOXJ1 was proposed as a prognostic marker in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (40). By contrast, a previous study proposed that FOXJ1 was decreased and may function as a tumor suppressor gene in breast cancer (39).…”

“…Furthermore, overexpression of FOXJ1 appears to be involved in proliferation and cell-cycle progression. In brief, little is known regarding the potential roles of FOXJ1 in carcinogenesis (40). The expression of FOXJ1 and its function in human RCC is unclear.…”

miR-372 down-regulates the oncogene ATAD2 to influence hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation and metastasis

“…HCC is the fifth most common malignant tumor worldwide, with an incidence of approximately 626,000 cases each year [1,2]. In China and Southeast Asia, HCC is highly associated with viral hepatitis B and cirrhosis [3].…”

Primary and Metastatic Tumours of the Liver: Expanding Scope of Morphological and Immunohistochemical Details in the Biopsy

“…FOXJ1 is over-expressed in HCC. It is associated with histological grade, poor prognosis and with tumour cell proliferation [19]. Hedgehog signalling pathway mediates invasion and metastasis of HCC via ERK pathway.…”

“…IHC is mandatory for the diagnostics of haematological neoplasms and epithelioid haemangioendothelioma. Assessment of tumour biological potential can be done by IHC, evaluating Ki-67, Cyclin D1, FOXJ1, stem cell markers, matrix metalloproteinases and other markers [7][8][18][19][20][21][22]. Novel markers appear continuously as heat-shock protein 70 [23].…”