Clinical value and potential association of Rab1A and FoxM1 aberrant expression in colorectal cancer

Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies with a dismal 5-year survival rate. Our recent study indicated that Rab1A expression was closely related to GLI1 expression. A previous study shows that aberrant overexpression of GLI1 promotes colorectal cancer metastasis via FoxM1 overexpression. However, the potential correlation between Rab1A and FoxM1 in CRC remains elusive. Immunohistochemistry was performed to investigate the association of the expression of Rab1A and FoxM1 and to determine the prognosis in 135 CRC tissue and adjacent normal tissues. Using Oncomine datasets, we found that Rab1A and FoxM1 mRNA were obviously upregulated in CRC tissues compared to normal tissues. Additionally, the expression of Rab1A and FoxM1 was significantly higher in CRC tissues than that in normal tissues. Rab1A expression was positively correlated with FoxM1 expression in CRC, especially in TNM stage III. In addition, Rab1A and FoxM1 overexpression was found to be significantly correlated with poor prognosis in CRC patients. Besides, both high expression of Rab1A and FoxM1 led to a worse prognosis than anyone low group, and both low expression of Rab1A and FoxM1 had a better prognosis than the anyone low group. Therefore, Rab1A and FoxM1 play crucial roles and could be used as clinical biomarkers in CRC.