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Updated: Feb 2, 2026

Development of Compendium for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Published on: April 12, 2024
Correlation between SALL4 stemness marker and bone morphogenetic protein signaling genes in esophageal squamous cell
Sogand Assarnia1, Sima Ardalan Khales2, Mohammad Mahdi Forghanifard3
1Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, College of Science, School of Biology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract:
SALL4, as a stemness marker, plays a key role in the maintenance of pluripotency and self-renewal of cancer stem cells. To elucidate probable linkage between SALL4 stemness marker and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) cell signaling pathway, we aimed to analyze the expression levels of the related genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients. Tumoral and corresponding margin normal tissues from 50 treatment-naive ESCC patients were subjected for expression analysis using relative comparative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. There were significant correlations between SALL4 mRNA and BMP signaling target genes expression including SIZN1, VENTX, and DIDO1 (P < 0.01). Tight associations of gene expression were observed in primary stages of tumor progression (stages I/II), and the invaded tumors to the adventitia (T3/T4). Furthermore, significant correlations between the expression of BMP signaling target genes were observed (P < 0.01). SALL4 may play role in tumorigenesis and tumor cell invasiveness of ESCC through correlation with BMP signaling genes.
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