Impact of homeobox genes in gastrointestinal cancer

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of homeobox genes which have diverse effects on gastrointestinal cancers. Solid arrow indicates upregulated homeogox genes and dashed arrow indicates downregulated ones. Note that CDX2 shows tumor suppressive function in colorectal and esophageal squamous cell cancer whereas oncogenic effect on the formation of Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. HOXD10 also shows dual function, which has tumor suppressive effect on gastric cancer whereas oncogenic effect on colorectal cancer. BE: Barrett’s esophagus; EAC: Esophageal adenocarcinoma; ESCC: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.