A clinicopathological exploration of Hedgehog signaling: implications in oral carcinogenesis.

Abstract

Hedgehog Signaling, a basic cancer stem cell pathway, plays a major role during the embryonic development, is known to play a quiescent role in adults. However, aberrant activation of Hedgehog signaling in adults is known to play a role in cancer development. Hence, the aim of the study was to identify the role of Hedgehog signaling pathway in the Oral cancers. The expression of Hedgehog signaling pathway was evaluated in 124 patients through the quantitative real-time PCR. The association between the gene expression and clinico-pathological parameters were analyzed using the Pearson chi-square test and survival analysis was carried out using Kaplan-Meier analysis. SHH and GLI1 was found to be significantly associated with the Lymph Node Status and SUFU was significantly associated with the Age. SMO and SUFU were found to have a worse prognosis in oral cancer patients. According to our findings, IHH plays a critical role in the activation of the HH signaling pathway in oral cancer. These findings back up the use of the Hedgehog signaling pathway as a biomarker for early disease prediction in oral cancer, as well as its role in tumor aggressiveness and invasiveness.