J Cancer 2024; 15(4):981-989. doi:10.7150/jca.88160 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Huadong Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, 221 West Yan'an Road, Shanghai, China.
2. Department of General Surgery, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
3. Digestive Endoscopic Center, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
# This author contributed equally to this work.
Flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) is a structure-specific nuclease that is involved in the occurrence and development of various types of tumors. Previous studies have shown that FEN1 plays an important role in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma, however, the molecular mechanisms remain fully elucidated, especially its effect on the cell cycle of hepatocellular carcinoma has not been investigated.
In this study, via bioinformatics prediction and clinical specimen verification, we confirmed that FEN1 was highly expressed in HCC and correlated with poor prognosis. The knockdown or overexpression of FEN1 could inhibit or promote the proliferation and invasion of HCC cells. Importantly, cell cycle and functional experiments showed that FEN1 could promote cell proliferation by inducing cell cycle transition from G2 to M phase. Further studies indicated that FEN1 regulated the G2/M transition by modulating cell division cycle 25C (Cdc25C), cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) and Cyclin B1 expressions. To sum up, our research suggested that FEN1 could promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of HCC cells via activating cell cycle progression from G2 to M phase, indicating that FEN1 may be a potential target for the treatment of HCC.
Keywords: Flap endonuclease 1, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Cell cycle, G2/M transition