An Immunohistochemical Study on Expression of Laminin5 Gamma2 Chain and Alpha Smooth Muscle actin in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Background and objectives: Head and neck carcinomas are the biological heterogeneous group of cancers, of which oral cancer is the most common. Ninety percent of oral cancers are squamous cell carcinomas originating from the mucosal epithelium carcinogenesis. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide. The transformation of the normal epithelial cell into a tumor cell depends upon certain changes that happen at the cellular and molecular level which will help in its survival and proliferation. The basement membrane will show invasion by these altered tumor cells into the connective tissue stroma and then their subsequent spread and metastasis, which is an important prognostic indicator. Laminin-5 is a protein which is found to be associated with a migratory phenotype in epithelial neoplastic cells and also the stromal myofibroblasts play a key role in tumor invasion, due to its ability to modify the extracellular matrix. Aim: Laminin-5 (Ln-5) is the major component of the basement membrane and is involved for tumour progression. Alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) is an isoform of actin, positive in myofibroblasts and is an epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) marker. EMT is a process by which tumor cells develop and are able to metastasize. Tumor cells progression is always followed by alteration in the cell composition and extracellular matrix .Therefore the aim of this study is to detect and evaluate the expression of laminin5 gamma2 and α-SMA in OSCC and to evaluate the association of density of stromal myofibroblasts with tumour budding intensity. Materials and methods: Thirty paraffin embedded tissue blocks of clinically diagnosed and histopathologically confirmed cases of OSCC were evaluated .In this we have divided them into10 well differentiated OSCC,10 moderately differentiated OSCC and 10 poorly differentiated OSCC for laminin-5 and α- smooth muscle actin (SMA) using standard immunohistochemistry technique. ....