Here we investigated the role of DLX2 in association with radiation-induced epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and stem cell-like properties and its regulation by Smad2/3 signaling in irradiated A549 and MDA-MB-231 human cancer cell lines.
Annotation of mRNA profiling data on GBM from The Cancer Genome Atlas and MD Anderson Cancer Center showed the proneural and neural subtypes highly correlated with low and high DLX2 expression, respectively.
Finally, Dlx2 expression supports experimental tumour growth and metastasis of B16 melanoma cells and correlates with tumour malignancy in a variety of human cancer types.
In the present study, we show that Distal-less 2 (Dlx-2), a homeobox gene of the Dlx family that is involved in embryonic development, is induced in cancer cell lines dependently of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in response to glucose deprivation (GD), one of the metabolic stresses occurring in solid tumors.