KIF20A promotes the development of soft tissue sarcoma by activating the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway

Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a group of malignancies that can appear in any part of the body. The prognosis of STS patients remains unsatisfactory, mainly due to metastasis and recurrence. Upregulation of KIF20A is associated with poor prognosis of STS patients, but its downstream mechanism is unknown. In the present study, we found that downregulation of KIF20A in the STS cell line HT-1080 inhibits cell proliferation, migration, and invasion and induced cell apoptosis and G2/M arrest in vitro. In addition, downregulation of KIF20A in HT-1080 repressed tumorigenesis of STS in a xenograft mouse model. Pathway analysis showed, that downregulation of KIF20A led to suppression of downstream PI3K-AKT and NF-κB pathways. Specifically, the phosphorylation of AKT at Ser473 was inhibited. Taken together, our results indicate that KIF20A plays an important role in the development of STS by inhibiting cell proliferation, migration, invasion via the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway. Therefore, KIF20A is a potential therapeutic target in STS. Three KIF20A knockdown HT1080 cell lines and three control HT1080 cell lines.