More importantly, downregulation of β-catenin could effectively prevent its enrichment in nuclei and then significantly downregulate the expression of proteins, such as vimentin, Snail, MMP-2, MMP-9, CD44, Nanog, and Oct4 to prevent tumor progression and metastasis.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotypes might be related to tumor progression while OCT4 expression is involved in tumor metastasis and poor prognosis.
The correlation of OCT4, but not CD133, with the invasiveness of bladder cancer revealed that OCT4 can be considered as a key regulator of tumor progression, aggressive behavior, and metastasis; therefore, OCT4 can be a potential marker for targeted therapy of bladder cancer.