Expression of MAGE-A12 in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Nur Mollaoglu,Friedrich W Neukam,Jutta Ries,Eleftherios Vairaktaris,Emeka Nkenke

doi:10.1155/2008/359840

Abstract

Melanoma associated-A antigens (MAGE-A) are silent in normal tissues except testis. However, they are activated in a variety of different tumors. Thus, their expression is highly specific to cancer cells. Reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-nPCR) is a highly sensitive technique that has been used successfully for the detection ofMAGE genes in tissue samples. The aim of the study is to analyze the expression rate of MAGE-A12 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) using a high sensitive RT-nPCR. Total of 57 tissue samples obtained from patients with OSCC and 20 normal oral mucosal (NOM) probes of otherwise healthy volunteers were included to this study. No expression of MAGE-A12 was observed in the non-neoplastic NOM tissues. MAGE-A12 was expressed in 49.1% of the investigated tumor samples. The correlation between malignant lesion and MAGE-A12 detection was significant (p < 0.001). It is concluded that results of this study may indicate MAGE-A12 as a useful additional diagnostic marker especially for the early detection of OSCC distinguishing neoplastic transformation and detection of occult and/or rare disseminated cancer cells. In addition, MAGE-A12 expression in OSCC may also determine a new immunotherapeutic target and might be warranted to develop vaccine for OSCC.

Highlights

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the 6th most common cancer worldwide accounting for 3–5% of all malignancies [13]
Total of 57 specimens from OSCC to determine the MAGE-A12 expression profile and 20 specimens from normal oral mucosal (NOM) taken from otherwise healthy volunteers were analysed
The expression of different subtypes of MAGE-A genes has been extensively studied in adult individual neoplasia arising from epithelial cell like melanoma, lung, bladder, breast, colorectal, gastric, esopharyngial SSC, hepaticellular carcinoma and head & neck cancer [5,9,12,16,21]

Summary

Introduction

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the 6th most common cancer worldwide accounting for 3–5% of all malignancies [13]. The early stage of OSCC is often curable, the prognosis of advanced cases generally remains poor. In such cases, early detection and/or treatment of oral cancer can significantly improve the survival rate. Estimation of recurrency or the premalignant stage of a secondary primary tumor using a high specific tumor associated marker to differentiate malignant from a benign might be of important. Despite the diagnostic and therapeutic advances in combination therapy including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the prognosis of OSCC remains still 50%–60% in five year survival analysis and has not been changed significantly during the last three decades [23]. Active immunotherapy approaching malignant cells by using vaccines derived from defined antigens appeared to be especially attractive to treat OSCC. Prerequisites for the development of specific vaccines are the existence and identification

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