Expression of HOXC6 in prostate cancer and their clinical significance

HU Xiaoxue; WANG Lei; XU Xiao; JIANG Mengfan; ZHANG Yaping; JIANG Zhengting; YANG Jiajia

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1007-8096.2025.07.013

Abstract：Objective To investigate the expression level of homeobox C6(HOXC6)in prostate cancer and its relationship with the clinicopathological characteristics of patients.Methods GEPIA database was used to predict the differences in the expression level of HOXC6 in prostate cancer tissues and normal prostate tissues,and the effect of the differences on the prognosis of patients was explored.The cancer tissues and corresponding paracancerous tissues of 83 patients with prostate cancer who underwent radical prostatectomy in the Affiliated Hospital of Yangzhou University from January 2021 to September 2023 were collected.The expression level of HOXC6 protein in prostate cancer tissues and paracancerous tissues was detected by immunohistochemical staining(IHC).The correlation between the expression level of HOXC6 and the clinicopathological characteristics of prostate cancer patients was investigated.Results The database prediction results showed that the expression level of HOXC6 in prostate cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in normal prostate tissues,and the survival rate of patients in the HOXC6 high expression group was lower than that in the low expression group(P<0.05).Immunohistochemical staining results suggested that HOXC6 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm of prostate cancer cells,and the expression level of HOXC6 in prostate cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues,and the difference was statistically significant(P<0.001).There was no significant difference in the expression level of HOXC6 in prostate cancer patients with different age groups,with or without urination pain,vascular invasion,nerve invasion and TNM stage(P>0.05).There were significant differences in HOXC6 expression among patients with different tumor volume,differentiation degree,pT stage,lymph node metastasis,PSA level and Gleason grade(P<0.05).Conclusion HOXC6 is highly expressed in the tumor tissues of prostate cancer patients,and the overall prognosis of patients with high expression of HOXC6 is poor,suggesting that HOXC6 can be used as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.