HOPX hypermethylation promotes metastasis via activating SNAIL transcription in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

摘要: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is characterized by a high rate of local invasion and early distant metastasis. Increasing evidence indicates that epigenetic abnormalities play important roles in NPC development. However, the mechanisms underlying metastasis remain unclear. Here we investigate aberrantly methylated transcription factors tissues, identify HOP homeobox HOPX as most significantly hypermethylated gene. Consistently, find HOXP expression downregulated tissues cell lines. Restoring suppresses enhances chemosensitivity cells. These effects are mediated HOPX-mediated silencing SNAIL through enhancement histone H3K9 deacetylation promoter. Moreover, patients with methylation levels exhibit poor clinical outcomes both training validation cohorts. In summary, acts tumour suppressor via regulation transcription, which provides novel prognostic biomarker for therapeutic target treatment.