ISX promotes tumor metastasis and invasion in lung cancer by upregulating COL1A1

Recurrence and metastasis are the leading causes of poor prognosis and death in lung cancer. Despite the large number of studies that have explored them, the mechanism of cancer metastasis has not yet been fully elucidated. As a gut-specific homeobox transcription factor, intestine-specific homeobox is a proto-oncogene induced by an inflammatory factor. Previous studies have shown that ISX overexpression induces epithelial mesenchymal transition response and promotes tumor cell metastasis and invasion. In the present study, we established a lung cancer orthotopic and metastatic cell model induced by ISX by lentivirus-mediated ISX overexpression. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was first used to verify the expression of the EMT-related gene induced by its overexpression. Furthermore, transcriptome sequencing and analysis showed that the overexpression of ISX induced significant changes in the gene expression profile of human lung cancer cells. In addition, COL1A1, a highly expressed gene in various tumor tissues and cells, was shown to promote tumor cell metastasis, possibly by promoting EMT, and was significantly upregulated in human lung cancer cells overexpressing ISX. These results suggest that ISX may promote lung cancer metastasis and invasion by increasing the expression of COL1A1.