Oncotarget

Research Papers:

PRRX1 induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition in oesophageal cancer

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DOI pending

Jinbao Guo1, Ming Du1, Bin Wang1, Li Zhong2, Zhongxue Fu3 and Jinlai Wei3

1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China

2 Department of Gynecology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China

3 Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China

Correspondence to:

Li Zhong, email: [email protected]

Keywords: PRRX1; oesophageal cancer; epithelial–mesenchymal transition; cancer metastasis

Received: January 08, 2023     Accepted: March 06, 2023     Published: PUBLISHED_DATE

Copyright: © 2023 Guo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ABSTRACT

This study aims to assess the significance of paired-related homeobox 1 (PRRX1) expression and investigate the mechanism of epithelial -mesenchymal transition (EMT) in oesophageal cancer metastasis. PRRX1 is expressed at high levels in oesophageal cancer specimens and is closely related to tumour metastasis in patients with oesophageal cancer. Regulation of PRRX1 expression might exert obvious effects on cell proliferation, especially the migration and invasion of oesophageal cancer cells. Moreover, silencing PRRX1 expression using a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) produced the opposite effects. In addition, when PRRX1 was overexpressed, inhibition of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway with XAV939 negated the effect of PRRX1 on EMT, whereas when PRRX1 was downregulated, activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway with LiCl impaired the effect on EMT. These observations indicate that PRRX1 is upregulated in oesophageal cancer is closely correlated with cancer metastasis. Additionally, PRRX1 induces EMT in oesophageal cancer metastasis through activation of Wnt/β-catenin signalling.