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Updated: Jul 13, 2025

Discovery of Driver Genes in Colorectal HT29-derived Cancer Stem-Like Tumorspheres
Published on: July 22, 2020
Systematic analysis reveals distinct roles of USF family proteins in various cancer types
Xia Liu1, Zhuo-Zhi Wang2, Shuai Meng3
1Department of Lymphoma, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research center of Cancer, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin's clinical research center for cancer, Sino-US Center for Lymphoma and Leukemia Research, Tianjin, China.
Background:
Upstream stimulatory factors (USFs) are members of the basic helix-loop-helix leucine zipper transcription factor family, including USF1, USF2, and USF3. The first two members have been well studied compared to the third member, USF3, which has received scarce attention in cancer research to date. Despite a recently reported association of its alteration with thyroid carcinoma, its expression has not been previously analyzed.
Methods:
We comprehensively analyzed differential levels of USFs expression, genomic alteration, DNA methylation, and their prognostic value across different cancer types and the possible correlation with tumor-infiltrating immune cells and drug response by using different bioinformatics tools.
Results:
Our findings established that USFs play an important role in cancers related to the urinary system and justify the necessity for further investigation. We implemented and offer a useful ShinyApp to facilitate researchers' efforts to inquire about any other gene of interest and to perform the analysis of drug response in a user-friendly fashion at http://zzdlab.com:3838/Drugdiscovery/.
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