KIF23 is an independent prognostic biomarker in glioma, transcriptionally regulated by TCF-4

Kinesin family member 23 (KIF23), a nuclear protein and a key regulator of cellular cytokinesis, has been found to be overexpressed as an oncogene in glioma. However, the prognostic and clinicopathological features of glioma with KIF23 expression was not clear yet. Here, we analyzed KIF23 expression pattern by using whole genome mRNA expression microarray data from Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) database (http://www.cgga.org.cn), and found that KIF23 overexpression was significantly associated with high grade glioma as well as the higher mortality in survival analysis (log-rank test, p<0.01). The results of the three other validation datasets showed similar findings. Furthermore, KIF23 also served as an independent prognostic biomarker in glioma patients. Finally, functional assay showed that reduction of KIF23 suppressed glioma cell proliferation both in vivo and vitro. Additionally, we found that KIF23 was regulated by TCF-4 at transcriptionally level. Therefore, this evidence indicates KIF23 over-expression is associated with glioma malignancy and conferred a worse survival time in glioma, which suggests KIF23 is a new novel prognostic biomarker with potential therapeutic implications in glioma.