Expression and clinical significance of SALL4 in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract: PURPOSE: To investigate the expression and clinical significance of Sal-like protein 4 (SALL4) in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC). METHODS: Real-time PCR, Western blotting and immunohistochemistry were used to analyze the expressions levels of SALL4 mRNA and protein in 50 OSCC tissue specimens in comparison with their adjacent normal tissue specimens. SPSS17.0 software package was used to identify correlations between SALL4 expression and the clinicopathological features in OSCC. RESULTS: Expression of SALL4 was upregulated in OSCC tissue at both mRNA and protein levels compared with the adjacent normal tissue (P<0.05). Immunohistochemistry detected positive nucleus staining of SALL4 protein. Expression of SALL4 was significantly correlated with OSCC staging and lymph node metastasis (both P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: SALL4 may be an extremely useful diagnostic marker for OSCC. Furthermore, SALL4 may play an important role in metastasis of OSCC; however, the underlying molecular mechanism needs to be further investigated.

Key words: SALL4, Oral squamous cell carcinomas, Cancer stem cell

CLC Number:

R739.8

LIU Si-qiang, SUN Na, ZHANG Feng-he. Expression and clinical significance of SALL4 in oral squamous cell carcinoma[J]. China Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 2016, 14(5): 440-444.

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