Article of Significant Interest in This Issue

Genome-Wide Analysis Unveils Novel Protein-Coding and Noncoding FOXA1 Targets in Colorectal Cancer The transcription factor FOXA1 has a well-characterized role in prostate and breast cancer. However, its involvement in non-hormone-driven cancers remains largely unclear. Lazar et al. (e00224-20) used chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with deep sequencing and RNA sequencing to identify novel protein-coding genes and long noncoding RNA targets of FOXA1 in well-differentiated colorectal cancer cells. They focused on the tumor marker CEACAM5, a facilitator of adhesion. Their results show that FOXA1 binds to an enhancer region of CEACAM5, strongly inducing its expression and thereby inhibiting anoikis. Collectively, these data identify multiple novel targets of FOXA1 and suggest a vital role for this factor in regulating CEACAM5 and promoting anoikis resistance.