In addition, SOX9 was identified as a transcription factor of FOXA1 in lung cancer and involved in affecting the expression of FOXA1 targeted genes-Bcl2, CDKN1B, RPRM and NKX2.
To conclusion, FOXA family showed significant expression differences between cancer and normal tissues, especially lung cancer, and FOXA1, FOXA3 could be promising prognostic biomarkers for lung cancer.
FOXA1 is overexpressed as a result of gene amplification in lung cancer, esophageal cancer, ER-positive breast cancer and anaplastic thyroid cancer and is point-mutated in prostate cancer.
The implication of FOXA1 in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition via its regulatory network indicates that FOXA1 may play an important role in the initiation of lung cancer metastasis.
These results suggest that both FOXA1 and NKX2-1 may act as lineage-specific target genes within the 14q amplicon with opposite functions in lung cancer.