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Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2025; 17(11): 109481
Published online Nov 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i11.109481
Myc-associated zinc finger protein drives colorectal cancer metastasis through activating ubiquitin like with ring finger protein one
Hui-Qin Mao, Fang-Cao Yu, Dan-Qiong Hu, Li-Jing Zhang
Hui-Qin Mao, Fang-Cao Yu, Li-Jing Zhang, Department of Ultrasonography, The Third People’s Hospital of Yuhang District, Hangzhou 311115, Zhejiang Province, China
Dan-Qiong Hu, Department of Gastroenterology, The Third People’s Hospital of Yuhang District, Hangzhou 311115, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Mao HQ contributed to conceptualization, methodology, and writing, review and editing; Yu FC and Hu DQ contributed to investigation and experiment; Zhang LJ contributed to data curation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Hangzhou Medical and Health Science and Technology Plan, No. B20210014.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The protocol for animal experiment was approved by the Ethics Committee of Zhejiang Baiyue Biotech Co., Ltd for experimental animals welfare, No. ZJBYLA-IACUC-20240830.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hui-Qin Mao, Department of Ultrasonography, The Third People’s Hospital of Yuhang District, No. 8 Yangshanwan Road, Pingyao Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou 311115, Zhejiang Province, China. 13968523585@163.com
Received: June 24, 2025
Revised: August 12, 2025
Accepted: October 20, 2025
Published online: November 15, 2025
Processing time: 142 Days and 17.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study elucidated the oncogenic role of Myc-associated zinc finger protein (MAZ) in colorectal cancer (CRC), demonstrating its ability to promote cancer cell migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition by modulating the ubiquitin-like with PHD and RING finger domains 1-esophageal cancer-related gene 4 signaling pathway. MAZ was up-regulated in CRC cell species, and inhibition of its expression significantly inhibited cell invasion, invasion, epithelial-mesenchymal transition and tumor metastasis. Dual-luciferase reporter assay, chromatin immunoprecipitation quantitative polymerase chain reaction and methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction further validated the interaction of the MAZ-ubiquitin-like with PHD and RING finger domains 1-esophageal cancer-related gene 4 axis, providing convincing evidence for MAZ as a potential therapeutic target for CRC.