Fig. 3. Overexpression of TWIST1, SLC12A5, and ZFHX4 correlate with more aggressive clinical characteristics and poor prognosis in patients with LUAD.

a–c TWIST1 (a), SLC12A5 (b) and ZFHX4 (c) were significantly overexpressed in the 38 LUAD tissue samples evaluated by RT-PCR. d Immunohistochemical staining analysis of TWIST1/SLC12A5/ZFHX4 in LUAD tissue microarray containing 92 pairs of LUAD and matched non-tumor tissue samples. e, f High expression of the TWIST1-ceRNET components was significantly correlated with advanced TNM staging (e) and lymph node metastasis (f). g–i Kaplan–Meier Plotter indicated that patients with higher TWIST1 (g)/SLC12A5 (h)/ZFHX4 (i) expression had poor OS in 92 LUAD patients after surgery. Empty vector (EV), RNA control (miR-C) and sh-control (sh-C) were used as controls as the circumstances may require. The data statistical significances were assessed by Student’s t-test (a–c, f), one-way ANOVA analysis (e) and log-rank test (g–l). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.001