Luciferase reporter assay, western blot and qRT-PCR were used to detect the association between miR-493 expression and zinc finger protein X-linked (ZFX) in HCC.
Therefore, miR-144 has been demonstrated to act as a tumour suppressor in HCC cell growth and motility by directly targeting ZFX, which implicates its potential applications in the development of HCC treatment.
We observed that the elevated expression of both ZFX and epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) was associated with aggressive clinicopathological features and indicated poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Further investigations suggested that ZFX bind on the promoter of two important mediators, namely Nanog and SOX-2, activating their expressions in HCC (p < 0.0001).