As a forkhead transcription factor situated on the X chromosome of a human, the forkhead box R2 (FOXR2) is usually expressed only in the testis. It can activate the binding activity of sequence-specific double-stranded DNA and promote the regulation of the RNA polymerase II transcription process.
Last month, Jessica W and her coworker published a new paper in Cancer Research to reveal the correlation between the expression of FOXR2 and cancers. They recruited over 1000 cancer patients of all ages to evaluate the expression level of the FOXR2 gene. The results showed that about 70% of all cancer types and 8% of all tumors were found with an obvious FOXR2 upregulated expression. In addition, they further assessed the FOXR2 expression state in diverse cancers by combing through cancer databases and sequencing tumors from various animal cancer models. As shown in Figure 1, the FOXR2 expression can be found in many common cancers such as glioma, osteosarcoma, neuroblastoma, and sarcoma.
Fig.1 FOXR2 is aberrantly expressed in many cancers. (Jessica, et al., 2022)
The growth rate of brain tumors can be boosted by the expression of the FOXR2 gene according to joint research by scientists in different fields. In their study, cells activate the gene through the hypomethylation process, which removes methyl chemical modifications from the gene. Moreover, a bunch of transcription factors named ETS would overexpress when FOXR2 was active, possibly promoting the formation of the tumor.
As mentioned before, the FOXR2 gene is barely expressed in normal tissues. Therefore, the development of targeted therapies against FOXR2 appears to be highly possible in the future. Besides, the detailed mechanism by which the gene promotes tumor growth requires further exploration by scientists.
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