FoxM1 is associated with poor prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer patients through promoting tumor metastasis

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 8; no. 3; p. e59412
• Main Authors: Xu, Nuo, Jia, Deshui, Chen, Wenfeng, Wang, Hao, Liu, Fanglei, Ge, Haiyan, Zhu, Xiaodan, Song, Yuanlin, Zhang, Xin, Zhang, David, Ge, Di, Bai, Chunxue
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 25.03.2013; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Cancer; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - metabolism; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - mortality; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - pathology; Cell cycle; Cell migration; Differentiation (biology); Disease Progression; Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition - genetics; Female; Forkhead Box Protein M1; Forkhead Transcription Factors - genetics; Forkhead Transcription Factors - metabolism; Gene Expression; Gene Knockout Techniques; Histology; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Invasiveness; Lung cancer; Lung diseases; Lung Neoplasms - metabolism; Lung Neoplasms - mortality; Lung Neoplasms - pathology; Lymph nodes; Lymphatic system; Male; Medical prognosis; Medical screening; Medicine; Mesenchyme; Metastases; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Neoplasm Metastasis; Non-small cell lung carcinoma; Patients; Prognosis; Smoking; Survival analysis; Tissues; Tumor cells; Tumors; New York; United States > US; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059412

FoxM1 has been reported to be important in initiation and progression of various tumors. However, whether FoxM1 has any indication for prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer patients remains unclear. In this study, FoxM1 expression in tumor cells was examined first by immunohistochemistry in 175 NSCLC specimens, the result of which showed that FoxM1 overexpression was significantly associated with positive smoking status (P = 0.001), poorer tissue differentiation (P = 0.0052), higher TNM stage (P<0.0001), lymph node metastasis (P<0.0001), advanced tumor stage (P<0.0001), and poorer prognosis (P<0.0001). Multivariable analysis showed that FoxM1 expression increased the hazard of death (hazard ratio, 1.899; 95% CI, 1.016-3.551). Furthermore, by various in vitro and in vivo experiments, we showed that targeted knockdown of FoxM1 expression could inhibit the migratory and invasive abilities of NSCLC cells, whereas enforced expression of FoxM1 could increased the invasion and migration of NSCLC cells. Finally, we found that one of the cellular mechanisms by which FoxM1 promotes tumor metastasis is through inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program. These results suggested that FoxM1 overexpression in tumor tissues is significantly associated with the poor prognosis of NSCLC patients through promoting tumor metastasis.