Clinicopathological Significance Of Tafazzin Expression In Patients With Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC)is one of the most common head and neck malignancies nearly accounting for more than 80%,and its pathogenesis has not been fully elucidated.With the development of modern medical technology and auxiliary equipment,great progresses have been made in prevention,early diagnosis and treatment of different malignant tumors,but the mortality of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma is still very high,the five-year survival rate is about 60% according to statistics and the main reason of death is tumor recurrence or lymph node metastasis.So it is of great significance in studying the etiology and pathogenesis of oral squamous cell carcinoma to improve the prevention,diagnosis,treatment,clinical monitoring and prognosis.Exploring new biological markers related to the development,invasion and lymph node metastasis of OSCC has become one of the very important means to predict lymph node metastasis and prognosis of patients with OSCC.Tafazzin(TAZ)is a acyltransferase existing in the membranes of cell mitochondria,a recent study found that TAZ is overexpressed in colorectal cancer.However,there is no study on TAZ in OSCC.MAC30 is a member of the insulin-like growth factor binding protein family,we found that MAC30 was related to the development,invasiveness and lymph node metas-tasis of OSCC.Objective: The present study aimed to determine TAZ expression in OSCC compared to normal oral mucosa,and to analyze the relationship between TAZ expression in OSCC and clinicopathological variables,including patient gender and age,tumor location,lymph node status,grade of differentiation and TNM stage.Analysis the correlations of TAZ and MAC30 to probe its role and significance in the occurrence and development of OSCC.Provide theoretical basis and new biological marker for the clinical diagnosis,treatment and prognosis of OSCC.Materials and Methods:Using the immunohistochemistry,we detected the expression of TAZ in OSCC and normal oral mucosa,and further analyzed the relationship between TAZ expression in OSCC and clinicopathological variables,including patient gender and age,tumor location,lymph node status,grade of differentiation and TNM stage.We also analyzed the correlation between the expression of TAZ and MAC30 in OSCC.The materials were divided into experimental group and control group.Experimental group: 59 cases of patients with OSCC were collected as experimental group in the Third Hospital of the Hebei Medical University during 2010 to 2015,and the clinicopathological variables,including patient gender and age,tumor location,lymph node status,grade of differentiation and TNM stage,were collected according to the medical records.Control group: 24 cases of normal oral mucosa specimens were taken from the patients with alveolar ridge surgery and plastic surgery.The statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 21.0 software,using χ2 test and Spearman Correlation test.Results:1 The expression of TAZ protein in normal oral mucosa and oral squamous cell carcinoma: TAZ expression was mostly negative or weak positive in normal oral mucosa and moderate or strong positive in oral squamous cell carcinoma,the rate of positive TAZ expression was significantly higher in primary tumors than in normal mucosa(66% vs.8%,P<0.05).TAZ also showed strong positive expression in metastatic lymph nodes.2 The relationship between TAZ expression and clinicopathological parameters: The expression of TAZ was related to the degree of differentiation,clinical stage and lymph node metastasis.Strong TAZ expression is significantly higher in poor-differentiated OSCC than that in good-differentiated OSCC(89% vs.56%,P<0.05),in stages III-IV than that in stages I-II(83% vs.56%,P<0.05)and in tumours with lymph node metastasis than that in tumors without lymph node metastasis(86% vs.54%,P<0.05),the differences were statistically significant.TAZ expression was not significantly correlated with gender,age and tumor location(P>0.05).3 Correlation between TAZ and MAC30 expression in OSCC: the expression of TAZ and MAC30 gene in OSCC was positively correlated(r=0.492,P=0.000),in oral squamous cell carcinoma with lymph node metastasis the expression of TAZ protein was positively correlated with the expression of MAC30 protein(r=0.459,P=0.032).Conclusion:1 The expression of TAZ in OSCC was significantly higher than that in normal oral mucosa,it may be a new molecular marker for the detection of oral squamous cell carcinoma.2 The positive expression of TAZ in tumours with lymph node metastasis was significantly increased,which indicated that TAZ expression is related to lymph node metastasis,overexpression of TAZ in OSCC may predict nodal metastasis.3 TAZ is related to the differentiation and TNM stage of OSCC.TAZ expression was significantly stronger in cases of poor-differentiation than in good-differentiation cases,the positive expression rate of advanced patients was higher than that of early patients.4 TAZ promotes lymph node metastasis in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma may be related to MAC30.