OP050: Expression of fascin in squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity: Clinicopathological, prognostic significance and cell line study

Abstract

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the most common head and neck cancers. The prognosis of HNSCC is usually poor because of extensive local invasion at initial diagnosis. Fascin, an actin-bundling protein, has been reported responsible for cell motility and overexpression of Fascin contributes to an unfavorable clinical course in several malignancies. Nevertheless, the roles of Fascin protein playing in aggressiveness of HNSCC and their potential mechanisms need to be elucidated. Tca8113(cell lines of OSCC) via the vector-based small interfering RNA (siRNA) to suppress the expression of the Fascin gene were used. Subsequent analyses and observation regarding the expression of Fascin protein and cyto-morphological alterations were detected by Western blot and Boyden chamber invasion assay, cell migration assay and adhesion assay were also applied to investigate the functional changes of Tca8113. Paraffin sections using tissue microarrays of 84 patients with OSCC were investigated immunohistochemically, to determine the level of expression of Fascin labelling index in tumor specimens. The role of Fascin in OSCC was evaluated by correlation with clinical-pathological parameters. There were statistically significant differences ( P < 0.05) of Fascin expression before and after silencing. Down-regulation of Fascin protein directly resulted in suppression of migration, invasion and increase of adhesion in cell line ( P < 0.05). Overexpression of Fascin was significantly associated with regional lymph node metastases ( P = 0.044),advanced T stage (T1 vs T2-4, P = 0.046) advanced tumor stage (I/II vs III/IV, P = 0.049), histologic grade (well vs moderately/poorly, P = 0.018). In 54 patients with tongue carcinoma, overexpression of Fascin was significantly associated with muscle invasion ( P = 0.002). Our results suggest that expression of Fascin protein may play an essential role in regulation of progression of OSCC. Overexpression of Fascin contributes to a more aggressive clinical course and suggests that Fascin has the potential of being a new molecular target for therapeutic intervention.