Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41133469›Full record

ArticleMolecular medicine reports2026

Liquid‑liquid phase separation of PHLDB2 promotes oral squamous cell carcinoma metastasis through regulating epithelial mesenchymal transition and PIK3CA expression.

Kunyi Chen, Yuhong Wang, Jianing Cui, Qianrui Liu, Xiaoyong Liu, Wenjin Wang, Jinsong Hou

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Molecular medicine reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Kunyi Chen *Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Yuhong Wang *Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Jianing CuiDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Qianrui LiuDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Xiaoyong LiuDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Wenjin WangDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.
Jinsong HouDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hospital of Stomatology, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510055, P.R. China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Liquid‑liquid phase separation (LLPS) contributes to multiple cellular bioprocesses; however, its clinicopathological relevance to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains largely unexplored. In the present study an integrative multi‑omics analysis investigating the prognostic value and molecular functions of LLPS‑related genes (LLPSRGs) in OSCC was conducted by leveraging transcriptomics and clinical data from 302 cases in The Cancer Genome Atlas database and LLPSRGs. A total of two prognostically distinct molecular subtypes were stratified by unsupervised clustering analysis, and a robust prognostic signature comprising seven key LLPSRGs was developed through LASSO regression and multivariate Cox analysis. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted the involvement of this signature in epithelial‑mesenchymal transition (EMT), with PHLDB2 emerging as a core regulator. Notably, the PHLDB2 protein underwent LLPS and formed droplet condensates both outside and in OSCC cells. Moreover, functional experiments revealed that PHLDB2 depletion attenuated the malignant biological behavior of OSCC cells, including cell proliferation, stemness, invasion and migration, and PHLDB2 promoted OSCC progression by regulating the PI3K‑Akt signaling pathway and PIK3CA expression. Retrospective clinical cohort and public dataset analyses validated that high expression of PHLDB2 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis, higher pathological grade and reduced survival in patients with OSCC. Collectively, the present study established an LLPS‑based prognostic signature for OSCC, and revealed that phase separation of PHLDB2 may drive OSCC progression through regulating EMT and PIK3CA.

Indexed as

Carcinoma, Squamous CellClass I Phosphatidylinositol 3-KinasesEpithelial-Mesenchymal TransitionGene Expression Regulation, NeoplasticMouth NeoplasmsCell Line, TumorCell MovementCell ProliferationFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedNeoplasm MetastasisPhase SeparationPrognosisSignal TransductionClass I Phosphatidylinositol 3-KinasesPIK3CA protein, humanliquid‑liquid phase separationoral squamous cell carcinomaPHLDB2

Identifiers

PMID41133469
PMCPMC12576774

What Socratic holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.