Homeobox B9 is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinomas and promotes tumor cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo.
HomeoboxB9 (HOXB9), a nontransforming transcription factor that is overexpressed in multiple tumor types, alters tumor cell fate and promotes tumor progression. However, the role of HOXB9 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development has not been well studied. In this paper, we found that HOXB9 is overexpressed in human HCC samples. We investigated HOXB9 expression and its prognostic value for HCC. HCC surgical tissue samples were taken from 89 HCC patients. HOXB9 overexpression was observed in 65.2% of the cases, and the survival analysis showed that the HOXB9 overexpression group had significantly shorter overall survival time than the HOXB9 downexpression group. The ectopic expression of HOXB9 stimulated the proliferation of HCC cells; whereas the knockdown of HOXB9 produced an opposite effect. HOXB9 also modulated the tumorigenicity of HCC cells in vivo. Moreover, we found that the activation of TGF-β1 contributes to HOXB9-induced proliferation activities. The results provide the first evidence that HOXB9 is a critical regulator of tumor growth factor in HCC.
['Li|Fangyi|F|', 'Dong|Lei|L|', 'Xing|Rong|R|', 'Wang|Li|L|', 'Luan|Fengming|F|', 'Yao|Chenhui|C|', 'Ji|Xuening|X|', 'Bai|Lizhi|L|']
D000818:Animals D015153:Blotting, Western D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular D002460:Cell Line D045744:Cell Line, Tumor D049109:Cell Proliferation D005260:Female D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic D056945:Hep G2 Cells D018398:Homeodomain Proteins D006801:Humans D007150:Immunohistochemistry D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate D008113:Liver Neoplasms D008297:Male D051379:Mice D008819:Mice, Nude D008875:Middle Aged D011379:Prognosis D034622:RNA Interference D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction D053773:Transforming Growth Factor beta1 D023041:Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays
Hepatocellular carcinomas Proliferation HomeoboxB9 TGF-β1