The transcription factor LEF1 promotes tumorigenicity and activates the TGF-β signaling pathway in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most difficult subtype of esophageal cancer to treat due to the paucity of effective targeted therapy. ESCC is believed to arise from cancer stem cells (CSCs) that contribute to metastasis and chemoresistance. Despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, the prognosis of ESCC patients remains poor. METHODS: In this study, we applied western blot, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), immunohistochemistry, RNA-Seq analysis, luciferase reporter assay, Chip-qPCR, bioinformatics analysis, and a series of functional assays to show the potential role of LEF1 in regulating esophageal CSCs. RESULTS: We found that the overexpression of LEF1 was associated with aberrant clinicopathological characteristics and the poor prognosis of ESCC patients. In addition, the elevated expression of LEF1 and OV6 was significantly associated with aberrant clinicopathological features, and poor patient prognosis. Moreover, the overexpression of LEF1 was observed in esophageal CSCs purified by the magnetic sorting of adherent and spheroidal ESCC cells. The increased level of LEF1 in CSCs facilitated the expression of CSC markers, stem cell-like properties, resistance to chemotherapy, and tumorigenicity and increased the percentage of CSCs in ESCC samples. Conversely, the knockdown of LEF1 significantly diminished the self-renewal properties of ESCC. We showed that LEF1 played an important mechanical role in activating the TGF-β signaling pathway by directly binding to the ID1 gene promoter. A positive association between LEF1 and ID1 expression was also observed in clinical ESCC samples. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the overexpression of LEF1 promotes a CSC-like phenotype in and the tumorigenicity of ESCC by activating the TGF-β signaling pathway. The inhibition of LEF1 might therefore be a novel therapeutic target to inactivate CSCs and inhibit tumor progression. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-019-1296-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.