SATB1 enhances gastric cancer progression and metastasis via upregulation of CLIP4/DZIP1/ PRICKLE2 axis in gastric cancer patients

SATB1 (Special AT-rich sequence binding protein 1) plays key role in chromatin remodeling and geneexpression. SATB1 has been shown to promote invasion, migration and metastasis. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms, function and clinicopathological features of SATB1 in gastric cancer (GC) remains poorly understood. Here, we show that SATB1 plays critical role in GC progression. SATB1 upregulates in GC patients’ samples and shows co-apmlification with a subset of oncogenic proteins (PRICKLE2, ZEB1, CBWX7, WWTR1, ENAH, DZIP1, IGSF11, ZSCAN18, GFRA2, GFRA1, FGFR1, HDAC4, GHR, TIMP3, CLIP4, TAGLN and ILK) in different subtypes of GC. SATB1 shows positive correlation with GC promoting oncogenes and enhances the expression of metastasis associated genes in GC samples to potentiate GC progression. SATB1 enhances WNT/NOTCH signaling axis in GC samples. In contrast, STAB1 suppresses a network of tumor suppressor genes in GC samples. Moreover, SATB1 expression negatively correlates with GC patient’s survival. Importantly, we found that SATB1 co-amplified genes CLIP4, DZIP1 and PRICKLE2 independently involve in GC progression. Overexpression of CLIP4, DZIP1 and PRICKLE2 show poor survival rates in GC patients. DZIP1 empowers AKT3/FGF2/FGFR1 and CXCR3/CXCR6 in GC patients. PRICKLE2 enhances GC progression by targeting FGFR1/NOTCH3/WNT4 signaling. Taken together, these results identified novel roles of SATB1, CLIP4, DZIP1 and PRICKLE2 in the GC invasion, migration and metastasis using cancer bioinformatics approach. These results highlights clinical significance of SATB1, CLIP4, DZIP1 and PRICKLE2 in GC patients and furthermore, these proteins may serve as prognostic markers in GC. These results also provide SATB1, CLIP4, DZIP1 and PRICKLE2 as potential chemotherapeutic targets in treatment of gastric cancer patients.