Down-regulation of FHL1 is associated with a poor prognosis of patients with oral cancer

Background: The four and a half LIM domains 1 (FHL1) gene has been reported to be related to carcinogenesis of some cancers. However, it was aberrant expressed in oral cancer, its prognostic value was never reported. The purpose of this study was to detect the expression of FHL1 and investigate its prognostic role in patients with oral cancer. Methods: The expression level of FHL1 at mRNA and protein level were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blot analysis in the tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues of 112 patients, respectively. Then, we analyzed the relationship between the FHL1 expression and clinicopathological features of patients. Besides, Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate the overall survival of patients while cox regression analysis was taken to evaluate the prognostic value of FHL1 in oral cancer. Results: The relative expression of FHL1 was significantly lower in tumor tissues compared with paired adjacent normal tissues both at mRNA and protein level. And the low expression of FHL1 was correlated with cell differentiated grade, TNM stage, and lymph node metastasis. Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that patients with low FHL1 expression had a shorter overall survival than those with high expression. Multivariate analysis showed that the low expression of FHL1 was an independent predictor for the prognosis of oral cancer. Conclusion: FHL1 was decreased in oral cancer tissues and participated in the progression of oral cancer. And it may be a novel prognostic indicator and potential target for gene therapy in oral cancer.