FZD2 regulates cell proliferation and invasion in tongue squamous cell carcinoma

Many studies have shown that FZD2 is significantly associated with tumor development and tumor metastasis. The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into the role of FZD2 in the cell proliferation and invasion of tongue squamous cell carcinoma. According to TCGA-HNSC dataset, among the 10 Frizzled receptors, FZD2 exhibited the highest degree of differential expression between cancer tissues and normal tissues, and the overall survival of patients with higher FZD2 levels was shown to be significantly shorter compared with those with lower FZD2 levels. The upregulation of FZD2 in clinical tongue cancer tissues was validated by real-time PCR. Knockdown of FZD2 inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of CAL-27 and TCA-8113 cells, whereas overexpression of FZD2 led to the opposite results. Further analysis revealed that FZD2 is positively correlated with WNT3A, WNT5B, WNT7A and WNT2 and is negatively correlated with WNT4. These results indicated that FZD2 may act as an oncogene in tongue squamous cell carcinoma. Therefore, FZD2 may be a target for the diagnosis, prognosis and gene therapy of tongue cancer.