The splicing factors PRPF4B and BUD31 and the transcription factor BPTF are essential for cancer cell migration, amplified in human primary breast tumors and associated with metastasis-free survival.
Furthermore, we found that HCC patients with high BPTF expression displayed high hTERT expression, and high BPTF or hTERT expression level was positively correlated with advanced malignancy and poor prognosis in HCC patients.
In culture, BPTF suppresses direct natural cytotoxicity receptor (NCR) mediated NK cell cytolytic activity to mouse and human cancer cell lines, demonstrating conserved functions.
Our findings uncover BPTF as a crucial c-MYC co-factor required for its biological activity and suggest that the BPTF-c-MYC axis is a potential therapeutic target in cancer.