Identification oncogenes is fundamental to revealing the molecular basis of cancer. Here, we found that FOXP2 is overexpressed in human prostate cancer cells and prostate tumors, but its expression is absent in normal prostate epithelial cells and low in benign prostatic hyperplasia. FOXP2 is a FOX transcription factor family member and tightly associated with vocal development. To date, little is known regarding the link of FOXP2 to prostate cancer. We observed that high FOXP2 expression and frequent amplification are significantly associated with high Gleason score. Ectopic expression of FOXP2 induces malignant transformation of mouse NIH3T3 fibroblasts and human prostate epithelial cell RWPE-1. Conversely, FOXP2 knockdown suppresses the proliferation of prostate cancer cells. Transgenic overexpression of FOXP2 in the mouse prostate causes prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia. Overexpression of FOXP2 aberrantly activates oncogenic MET signaling and inhibition of MET signaling effectively reverts the FOXP2-induced oncogenic phenotype. CUT&Tag assay identified FOXP2-binding sites located in MET and its associated gene HGF. Additionally, the novel recurrent FOXP2-CPED1 fusion identified in prostate tumors results in high expression of truncated FOXP2, which exhibit a similar capacity for malignant transformation. Together, our data indicate that FOXP2 is involved in tumorigenicity of prostate.

Pancreatic a-cells secrete glucagon, an insulin counter-regulatory peptide hormone critical for the maintenance of glucose homeostasis. Investigation of the function of human a-cells remains a challenge due to the lack of cost-effective purification methods to isolate high-quality a-cells from islets. Here, we use the reaction-based probe diacetylated Zinpyr1 (DA-ZP1) to introduce a novel and simple method for enriching live a-cells from dissociated human islet cells with ~ 95% purity. The a-cells, confirmed by sorting and immunostaining for glucagon, were cultured up to 10 days to form a-pseudoislets. The a-pseudoislets could be maintained in culture without significant loss of viability, and responded to glucose challenge by secreting appropriate levels of glucagon. RNA-sequencing analyses (RNA-seq) revealed that expression levels of key a-cell identity genes were sustained in culture while some of the genes such as DLK1, GSN, SMIM24 were altered in a-pseudoislets in a time-dependent manner. In conclusion, we report a method to sort human primary a-cells with high purity that can be used for downstream analyses such as functional and transcriptional studies.