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Vestigial‐like family member 3 (VGLL3) is a cofactor for TEA domain transcription factors (TEADs). Although VGLL3 is known to be highly expressed and stimulate cell proliferation in mesenchymal cancer cells, its involvement in mesenchymal phenotypes is largely unknown. In this study, we found that VGLL3 promotes epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT)‐like phenotypic changes. We found that A549 human lung cancer cells stably expressing VGLL3 exhibit spindle‐like morphological changes, reduction in the epithelial marker E‐cadherin and induction of the mesenchymal marker Snail. Notably, VGLL3‐expressing cells exhibited enhanced motility. The DNA‐binding protein high‐mobility group AT‐hook 2 (HMGA2) was found to be a target of the VGLL3‐TEAD4 complex, and HMGA2 knockdown repressed EMT‐like phenotypic changes in VGLL3‐expressing cells. VGLL3‐dependent phenotypic changes are involved in transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β)‐induced EMT progression. VGLL3 or HMGA2 knockdown repressed the motility of the mesenchymal breast cancer MDA‐MB‐231 cells. Importantly, high levels of VGLL3 expression were shown to have a positive correlation with poor prognosis in various human cancers, such as breast, colon, ovarian, head and neck, pancreatic, renal, gastric and cervical cancers. These results suggest that VGLL3 promotes EMT‐like cell motility by inducing HMGA2 expression and accelerates cancer progression.

Background: We performed a large-scale, retrospective, nationwide, cohort study of the incidence of brain metastasis in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) according to the systemic treatment administered. Method: The data were extracted from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service of Korea database from January 1, 2011 to November 30, 2016. Of the 29,224 patients newly diagnosed with stage IIIB or IV NSCLC who received first-line cytotoxic chemotherapy (CC group) or targeted therapy (TT group), 22,508 patients without brain metastasis were analyzed. Result: In total, 1,131 (5.0%) patients subsequently developed brain metastasis. The overall cumulative incidence of brain metastasis was significantly higher in the TT group than in the CC group (1-year cumulative incidence: 8.7 ± 0.6% vs. 3.8 ± 0.3%; 3-year: 17.2 ± 0.7% vs. 5.0 ± 0.3%, respectively; P <0.001), despite the higher rate of brain metastasis in the CC group at <3 years after diagnosis. Younger age, female sex, living in a rural area, anticoagulant use, and first-line TT (relative risk, 2.17 ± 0.03; 95% confidence interval, 1.92e2.50, P <0.0001) retained significant associations with subsequent brain metastasis after adjusting for all variables. Conclusion: In the Korean population, the overall cumulative incidence of brain metastasis was significantly higher in patients in the TT group than in those in the CC group; the former could be regarded as having mutations in the EGFR or ALK gene.