// Ita Novita Sari 1, * , Ying-Gui Yang 1, * , Lan Thi Hanh Phi 1 , Hyungjoo Kim 2 , Moo Jun Baek 3 , Dongjun Jeong 2 , Hyog Young Kwon 1 1 Soonchunhyang Institute of Medi-bio Science (SIMS), Soonchunhyang University, Republic of Korea 2 Soonchunhyang Medical Science Research Institute, College of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Republic of Korea 3 Department of Surgery, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Republic of Korea * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Hyog Young Kwon, email: hykwon@sch.ac.kr Dongjun Jeong, email: juny1024@sch.ac.kr Keywords: IFITM1, colorectal cancer, prognosis, metastasis Received: June 06, 2016 Accepted: November 07, 2016 Published: November 12, 2016 ABSTRACT Interferon-induced transmembrane protein 1 (IFITM1) has been shown to be implicated in multiple cancers, yet little is known about biological significance of IFITM1 in colorectal cancer. Here, we show that IFITM1 is highly expressed in metastatic colorectal cancer cell lines as well as colorectal patient-derived tumor samples, and its expression is associated with a poor prognosis of the disease. Also, IFITM1 depletion resulted in a significant reduction in the mobility of cancer cell lines, whereas ectopic expression of IFITM1 promoted the migration of cancer cells. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) signature was dysregulated by both loss and gain of function of IFITM1, which was partially reverted by Caveolin-1 (CAV1). Therefore, these results suggest that IFITM1 may be a prognostic marker and an attractive target to achieve better therapeutic outcomes in colorectal cancer.
