FOXM1 and polo-like kinase 1 are co-ordinately overexpressed in patients with gastric adenocarcinomas.

Abstract

Gastric cancers present late in life with advanced disease and carry a poor prognosis. Polo-like Kinase 1 (PLK1) is a mitotic kinase with regulatory functions during G2/M and mitosis in the cell cycle. In mammalian cells, there is an intricate co-regulatory relationship between PLK1 and the forkhead transcription factor FOXM1. It has been demonstrated that individually either PLK1 or FOXM1 expression predicts poorer survival. However, the co-expression of both of these markers in gastric adenocarcinomas has not been reported previously.