Overexpression of protein O-fucosyltransferase 1(POFUT1) in human oral cancer: correlation with tumor progression

摘要

Purpose : Protein O-fucosyltransferase 1(POFUT1) is closely related to glycosylation, one of the post-translational modifications, for target proteins. However, detail mechanism of POFUT1 in carcinogenesis is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine POFUT1 expression levels in oral squamous cells carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines and human clinical OSCC samples. In addition to in vitro data that POFUT1 mRNA and protein levels were significantly up-regulated in OSCC cell lines compared with human normal oral keratinocytes, we found up-regulation of POFUT1 in clinical OSCC samples. Furthermore, POFUTl-positive OSCC cases were correlated with advanced tumor size compared with POFUT1-negative OSCC cases. Consistent with clinical behaviors, POFUT1 knockdown cells showed lower cellular proliferation rate, indicating that POFUT1 would contribute an important role for tumor progression. Taken together, POFUT1 may be a potential diagnostic marker and a therapeutic target for OSCCs.