OP004

• Published in: Oral oncology Vol. 49; p. S5
• Main Authors: Saeed, Anas, Lopes, Victor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-05-2013
• Subjects: Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Medicine; Otolaryngology
• ISSN: 1368-8375
• DOI: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2013.03.012

The pace of invasiveness, metastasis, and recurrence of Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a multifactorial event. The tumour site, type of the environmental carcinogens, immune response and resistance of the body against the disease play an important role. To date, little is known about the biological mechanisms underlying such phenotypic variation in different populations. Our target is to explore possible range of gene expression profiles in OSCCs and normal controls from UK and Sri Lankan individuals using microarrays and to examine the most related genetic factors, pathways, and molecular processes that might be behind the phenotypic heterogeneity of OSCC in UK and Sri Lankan population groups in an attempt to understand the vast differences in clinical behaviour of the two tumour groups. Methods Tumour specimens were harvested from both UK and Sri Lankan patients with OSCC ( n = 24, 27 respectively). Normal controls were obtained from UK and Sri Lankan volunteers ( n = 7, 4 respectively). Using both unsupervised and supervised analysis we compared gene expression between tissue types and across the populations. Results Ingenuity Pathway Analysis ( Ingenuity ® Systems ) revealed a number of altered biological processes, molecular and cellular functions, canonical pathways, associated network functions, and transcriptional regulators in OSCCs which were significant in each of the analytic comparisons. Differential expression of three down-regulated genes in both UK and Sri Lankan tumours (CLU, MAL, and PTPN13/FAP1) was further confirmed by qRT-PCR. Conclusion The development of OSCCs from both UK and Sri Lankan populations appears to be largely mediated by similar biological pathways regardless of differences related to race, ethnicity, lifestyle, and/or exposure to environmental carcinogens. However, differences in immune response in the normal tissue of the two population groups may contribute to reduced invasiveness, metastasis, and mortality observed in Sri Lankan relative to UK patients.