The Hippo signaling effector WWTR1 is a metastatic biomarker of gastric cardia adenocarcinoma

Abstract Background Gastric cardia adenocarcinoma (GCA) is an aggressive subtype of gastric cancer with a high metastatic rate. However, the metastatic biomarker of GCA has not been established. Methods To search for the biomarker for GCA metastasis, we here examined expression of the Hippo signaling effector WWTR1 (WW domain containing transcription regulator 1, commonly listed as TAZ) in tumor tissue samples from 214 GCA cases using the tissue microarray assay (TMA), and statistically analyzed association of the WWTR1 expression with metastasis-related pathological outcomes and cumulative survival of the GCA patients. Furthermore, shRNA knockdown was used to determine the role of WWTR1 in promoting cell migration in gastric cancer cells. Results The results have shown that WWTR1 is overexpressed in 66.4% of the GCA tumor samples. Expression of WWTR1 has a significant inverse correlation with cumulative survival of GCA patients (p