Osteopontin as potential biomarker and therapeutic target in gastric and liver cancers

Gastric cancer and liver cancer are among the most common malignancies and the leading causes of death worldwide,due to late detection and high recurrence rates.Today,these cancers have a heavy socioeconomic burden,for which a full understanding of their pathophysiological features is warranted to search for promising biomarkers and therapeutic targets.Osteopontin (OPN) is overexpressed in most patients with gastric and liver cancers.Over the past decade,emerging evidence has revealed a correlation of OPN level and clinicopathological features and prognosis in gastric and liver cancers,indicating its potential as an independent prognostic indicator in such patients.Functional studies have verified the potential of OPN knockdown as a therapeutic approach in vitro and in vivo .Furthermore,OPN mediates multifaceted roles in the interaction between cancer cells and the tumor microenvironment,in which many details need further exploration.OPN signaling results in various functions,including prevention of apoptosis,modulation of angiogenesis,malfunction of tumor-associated macrophages,degradation of extracellular matrix,activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase-Akt and nuclear factor-κB pathways,which lead to tumor formation and progression,particularly in gastric and liver cancers.This editorial aims to review recent findings on alteration in OPN expression and its clinicopathological associations with tumor progression,its potential as a therapeutic target,and putative mechanisms in gastric and liver cancers.Better understanding of the implications of OPN in tumorigenesis might facilitate development of therapeutic regimens to benefit patients with these deadly malignancies.

Identification of TWIST-interacting genes in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men worldwide, and the number of diagnosed patients has dramatically increased in recent years. Currently, the clinical parameters used to diagnose prostate cancer, such as Gleason score, pathological tumor staging, and prostate-specific antigen(PSA) expression level, are considered insufficient to inform recommendation to guide clinical practice. Thus, identification of a novel biomarker is necessary. TWIST is one of the well-studied targets and is correlated with cancer invasion and metastasis in several human cancers. We have investigated two largest prostate cancer patient cohorts available in GEO database and found that TWIST expression is positive correlated with Gleason score and associated with poorer survival. By using a prostate cancer cohort and a prostate cancer cell line dataset, we have identified three potential downstream targets of TWIST, PPM1 A, SRP72 and TBCB. TWIST's prognostic capacity is lost when the gene is mutated. Further investigation in the prostate cancer cohort revealed that gene expression of SERPINA, STX7, PDIA2, FMP5, GP1 BB, VGLL4,KCNMA1, SHMT2, SAA4 and DIDO1 influence the prognostic significance of TWIST and vice versa. Importantly, eight out of these ten genes are prognostic indicator by itself. In conclusion, our study has further confirmed that TWIST is a prognostic marker in prostate cancer, identified its potential downstream targets and genes that could possibly give additional prognostic value to predict TWIST-mediated prostate cancer progression.