Overexpression of COL4A1 promotes progression of colon cancer and is associated with poor prognosis

Background Colon cancer is one of the common malignant tumor diseases of the digestive system, and its incidence and mortality rate are increasing year by year.Collagen type IV alpha 1 chain (COL4A1) is a hypoxia-associated gene (a collagen family protein) involved in the formation of the extracellular matrix.COL41 plays an important role in the progression of several cancers and is associated with poorer prognostic outcomes.However, whether it can mediate the progression of colon cancer is unclear. Method First, based on the TCGA-COAD dataset, we analyzed the mRNA expression levels of COL4A1 in colon cancer and evaluated the relationship between COL4A1 and clinicopathological features as well as prognosis.Then,we further analyzed the expression of COL4A1 in colon cancer tissues and colon tumor cells by qRT-PCR and HIC.Colon cancer cell lines SW480 and HCT116 were transfected with small interfering rna (siRNA) to construct low expression cell lines.Clone formation assay and transwell migration and invasion assays were used to detect the effects of knockdown of COL4A1 on proliferation, migration and invasion of colon cancer cells. Result Bioinformatics analysis showed that COL4A1 was significantly higher expressed in colon cancer tissues than in normal colon tissues. High expression of COL4A1 is associated with poor clinical stage and poor prognosis.We observed that COL4A1 was also highly expressed in colon cancer tissue and colon tumor cells compared with normal colon tissue and normal colon cells.Downregulation of COL4A1 significantly inhibited tumor cell proliferation, migration and invasion progression. Conclusion In summary, our study suggests that COL4A1 is a potential oncogene for colon cancer and can mediate colon cancer progression.