High expression of FOXC1 is associated with poor clinical outcome in non-small cell lung cancer patients

The aim of this study was to detect FOXC1 expression in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to analyze its association with prognosis of NSCLC patients. Expressional levels of FOXC1 mRNA and protein in 30 cases of NSCLC and corresponding non-tumor tissue samples were examined by quantitative real-time PCR and Western blotting. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of FOXC1 in 125 NSCLC tissues. We found that the expression levels of FOXC1 mRNA and protein in NSCLC tissues were significantly higher than those in corresponding non-tumor tissues. High-level FOXC1 expression was correlated with poor tumor differentiation, tumor-node-metastasis stage, and lymph node metastasis. Patients with high expression levels of FOXC1 showed lower overall survival rate than those with low expression levels. Multivariate analysis showed that high FOXC1 protein expression was an independent prognostic factor for NSCLC patients. Our study suggests that over-expression of FOXC1 may play an important role in the progression of NSCLC, and FOXC1 expression may offer a valuable marker for predicting the outcome of patients with NSCLC.