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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1536478

ITGAX promotes gastric cancer progression via epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathway

Provisionally accepted
Yang Chen Yang Chen 1*Jiali Hu Jiali Hu 2Jing Cao Jing Cao 3Shanshan Huang Shanshan Huang 4
  • 1 Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Dalian, China
  • 2 Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
  • 3 School of Pharmacy, Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
  • 4 Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancerrelated deaths worldwide, accounting for nearly 800,000 fatalities annually. ITGAX (Integrin alpha X) is closely associated with immune cells, such as macrophages and dendritic cells. Its involvement in gastric cancer was identified through an analysis of The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, which highlighted ITGAX as one of four key gastric cancer-related genes. Our study demonstrates that ITGAX expression is significantly elevated in tumor tissues compared to normal tissues and is positively correlated with clinical prognosis in gastric cancer patients from the GEO database. Moreover, ITGAX enhanced cell proliferation, invasion, and tumorigenic capacity in mouse models. Furthermore, we explored the underlying role of ITGAX using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and protein-protein interaction networks (PPI) analysis. Our findings reveal that ITGAX promotes gastric cancer progression by driving epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathway (EMT), suggesting its potential as a biomarker for early diagnosis and prognosis in gastric cancer.

    Keywords: ITGAX, gastric cancer, EMT, cell migration, tumorigenesis

    Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Hu, Cao and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yang Chen, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Dalian, China

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