Abstract
This study focused on the expression of mitochondrial serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT2) in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and its correlation with clinical traits and the prognosis of OSCC patients. Immunochemical staining and Western blotting were used to quantify the expression of SHMT2 and related immune markers in OSCC. Using OSCC microarrays and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we evaluated the association between SHMT2 and various clinical traits. We found that increased expression of SHMT2 was detected in OSCC and correlated with advanced pathological grade and recurrence of OSCC. By a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, high expression of SHMT2 was shown to indicate a negative prognosis. In addition, in the OSCC microenvironment, increasing the expression of SHMT2 was associated with high expression levels of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), CKLF-like MARVEL transmembrane domain containing 6 (CMTM6), V-type immunoglobulin domain-containing suppressor (VISTA), B7-H4, Slug, and CD317. In the future, more effort will be required to investigate the role of SHMT2 in the OSCC microenvironment.
Highlights
Originating from the oral cavity, oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the head and neck [1, 2]
Using the median value and the best cutoff value of microarrays as cutoff values, respectively, the results showed that the OSCC patients with a high SHMT2 expression had a poorer survival rate in comparison with those with a low SHMT2 expression (Figures 1D,E)
The survival analysis based on the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database demonstrated the same results: the high SHMT2 expression of OSCC patients is associated with a poorer survival outcome compared with low SHMT2 expression of OSCC patients when the median value (FPKM = 24.64) or best cutoff value (FPKM = 28.26) was used as a cutoff value (Figures 1F,G)
Summary
Originating from the oral cavity, oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the head and neck (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) [1, 2]. The mechanism of the OSCC microenvironment is not yet clear, and previous studies have demonstrated that both Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection and human papilloma virus (HPV) infection independently act as biomarkers of prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) [6, 7]. Correlation Between SHMT2 and OSCC of them can reflect the changes in intracellular molecules related to OSCC. These facts motivated us to research the biomarkers that can indicate the prognosis and the alteration of intracellular molecules related to OSCC in the OSCC microenvironment [7, 8]
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