As an independent prognostic factor, USP6 promotes the invasion and metastasis of colon cancer.

The lack of efficient tumor invasion and metastatic biomarkers led to high mortality rates in colon cancer patients. Aberrant expression of ubiquitin-specific protease 6 (USP6) was involved in several diseases including cancer, while its role in the progression of colon cancer was still unclear. In this study, USP6 was evaluated at both mRNA and protein levels by using RT-PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry staining analyses. The results revealed that high USP6 expression predicted poor disease-specific survival and overall survival through Kaplan-Meier analyses with log-rank tests, univariate and multivariate Cox analyses. Furthermore, cell function assay demonstrated that USP6 could promote colon cancer cells’ invasion in vitro and liver metastasis in vivo. These findings indicated that high USP6 expression contributed to the progression of colon cancer and USP6 may be a valuable prognostic factor in patients with colon cancer.