Abstract 3102: Identify potential therapeutic drugs on head and neck cancer through systemic bioinformatics approach

Abstract

Abstract Head and neck cancer (HNC) is one of the ten most frequent cancers worldwide. In Taiwan, with the the rising incidence in the past decade, HNC has become the fourth male malignant disease since year 2009. The standard therapy methods of HNC are surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or the combination of these modalities. Overall 5-year survival rate in patients with HNC is one of the lowest among common malignant neoplasms treatment of this disease and has not significantly improved over the past decades. To improve the identification of potential therapeutic drug process, integrating the signature of diseases, genes, and drugs was analyzed through bioinformatics method to find therapeutic candidates through comparison of gene signatures between disease and drug treatment. Here, we integrated HNC gene signatures (including 202 oral squamous carcinomas and 69 normal control species) and connectivity map drug database, and after querying, the drug shown with negative correlation may serve as therapeutic candidates to reverse oral cancer signature. Four potential small molecules with antitumor properties including natural product extracts or clinical therapeutic drugs in other diseases were identified. One of the natural product extracts was found it inhibited cell migration ability, cell invasion capacity and cancer stem cell sphere formation capability. Furthermore, the compound was demonstrated that tit regulated the epithelial-mesenchymal transition markers, suppressed the expression of stemness-related transcription factors (SOX2, Oct-4, and NANOG), and increased the expression of cell differentiation marker (CK18). The compound can also increase cell sensitivity to chemodrug- and radiation treatment then then suppress tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. Taking together, our study demonstrates a novel approach in drug development, by a bioinformatics method to effectively identify potential compounds for head and neck cancer therapy. Citation Format: Chen Yin-Ju, Jeng-Fong Chiou. Identify potential therapeutic drugs on head and neck cancer through systemic bioinformatics approach. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3102.