HOXB9 Expression Correlates with Histological Grade and Prognosis in LSCC.

Chuanhui Sun,Lingmei Qu,Yinji Jin,Yanan Sun,Peng Wang,Changsong Han

doi:10.1155/2017/3680305

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the HOX gene expression profile in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) and assess whether some genes are associated with the clinicopathological features and prognosis in LSCC patients. The HOX gene levels were tested by microarray and validated by qRT-PCR in paired cancerous and adjacent noncancerous LSCC tissue samples. The microarray testing data of 39 HOX genes revealed 15 HOX genes that were at least 2-fold upregulated and 2 that were downregulated. After qRT-PCR evaluation, the three most upregulated genes (HOXB9, HOXB13, and HOXD13) were selected for tissue microarray (TMA) analysis. The correlations between the HOXB9, HOXB13, and HOXD13 expression levels and both clinicopathological features and prognosis were analyzed. Three HOX gene expression levels were markedly increased in LSCC tissues compared with adjacent noncancerous tissues (P < 0.001). HOXB9 was found to correlate with histological grade (P < 0.01) and prognosis (P < 0.01) in LSCC. In conclusion, this study revealed that HOXB9, HOXB13, and HOXD13 were upregulated and may play important roles in LSCC. Moreover, HOXB9 may serve as a novel marker of poor prognosis and a potential therapeutic target in LSCC patients.

Highlights

Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is one of the most common forms of highly aggressive cancer and occurs with head and neck malignancies [1]
We found that HOXB9, HOXB13, and HOXD13 were all overexpressed in LSCC tissues compared with the corresponding adjacent noncancerous tissues
Our finding showed that the top 3 genes (HOXB9, HOXB13, and HOXD13) were all overexpressed and that high HOXB9 expression was significantly associated with a high histological grade and poor prognosis of patients with LSCC

Summary

Introduction

Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is one of the most common forms of highly aggressive cancer and occurs with head and neck malignancies [1]. There are 39 genes belonging to class I Homeobox genes in humans which are named HOX genes and divided into 4 clusters (A–D). It has been reported that HOX genes play critical roles in normal embryonic development, cell differentiation, and other processes in eukaryotic cell life [6]. Some studies have found that a number of HOX genes play important roles in neoplastic transformation and tumor progression [7, 8]. HOX genes have been found to be aberrantly expressed in many tumors such as breast [9, 10], leukemia [11, 12], lung [13, 14], liver [15], and gastric cancer [16]. There is minimal research on the relationships between HOX genes and HNSCC, especially LSCC

Objectives

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Conclusion