POFUT1 as a Promising Novel Biomarker of Colorectal Cancer

• Published in: Cancers Vol. 10; no. 11; p. 411
• Main Authors: Chabanais, Julien, Labrousse, François, Chaunavel, Alain, Germot, Agnès, Maftah, Abderrahman
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI 30.10.2018; MDPI AG
• Subjects: biomarker; colorectal cancer; early detection; NOTCH; POFUT1; NOTCH; colorectal cancer; early detection; biomarker; POFUT1
• ISSN: 2072-6694; 2072-6694
• DOI: 10.3390/cancers10110411

While protein -fucosyltransferase 1 ( ) overexpression has been recently proposed as a potential biomarker for different cancer types, no study was carried out on POFUT1 implication in colorectal cancer (CRC). Data from 626 tumors and 51 non-tumor adjacent tissues available in FireBrowse had been used in this study. Statistical analyses on expression and gene copy number, receptors (main targets of POFUT1 enzymatic activity) expression and association of and expressions with clinical parameters were investigated. Data were completed by POFUT1 histological labeling on six tumor tissues from patients with CRC. We found that is overexpressed from the stage I ( < 0.001) and 76.02% of tumors have a 20q11.21 amplification, associated in 90.13% of cases with a overexpression, compared to non-tumor adjacent tissues. The copy number in tumors is mainly between 2 and 3. is positively correlated with (r = 0.34, < 0.001), (r = 0.087, = 0.0297), and (r = 0.097, = 0.0148) expressions, while negatively correlated with expression (r = -0.098, = 0.0142). overexpression is markedly associated with rectal location, non-mucinous adenocarcinoma and cancer stages IV and M1. overexpression is only associated with rectal location and non-mucinous adenocarcinoma. We conclude that is overexpressed in CRC from stage I, and its high expression is associated with metastatic process, probably through NOTCH pathway activation. Then, POFUT1 could represent a potential novel biomarker for CRC diagnosis.