Up-regulation of SALL4 associated with poor prognosis in gastric cancer. .

SALL4 [encoding the Sal-Like 4 (Drosophila) protein, also known as spalt-like transcription factor 4] plays crucial roles in the development of different cancers, as well as vital embryogenic roles. However, knowledge of its relationship to gastric cancer is limited, and its association with prognosis in gastric cancer has not yet been reported. comprehensive bioinformatics analyses including mRNA expression, gene occurrence, protein/gene interaction, pathway enrichment and biological processes annotation were performed. we indicated that the expression of SALL4 was up-regulated at least 2.2-fold in 103 cases of gastric cancers, compared with its expression in 65 normal controls. Further analysis indicated that SALL4 was co-occurred and interacted with 23 proteins/genes which all were associated with a poor gastric cancer prognosis. It also associated with 14 biological processes and Wnt signaling pathway, which have been proven to be closely related to gastric cancer and its prognosis. for the first time, we have shown that the up-regulation of SALL4 in gastric cancers should serve as a worthwhile biological marker of poor prognosis in gastric cancer therapies, via the strong interactions with a number of proteins, genes, biological processes and pathways which all were associated with poor prognosis in gastric and other cancer.