Cancers, Vol. 13, Pages 5895: Stem Cell Markers CXCR-4 and CD133 Predict Aggressive Phenotype and Their Double Positivity Indicates Poor Prognosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cancers, Vol. 13, Pages 5895: Stem Cell Markers CXCR-4 and CD133 Predict Aggressive Phenotype and Their Double Positivity Indicates Poor Prognosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers13235895 Authors: Caspa Gokulan Devaraj The activation of the SDF-1/CXCR-4 pathway is crucial for the invasion and metastasis of oral cancer cells. The CXCR-4 positive cells possess stem cell characteristics and express the cancer stem cell marker, CD133, in tumors of colon and pancreas. Despite several studies, the co-expression of CXCR-4 and CD133 and its significance is still largely unknown in oral cancer. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the impact of CXCR-4 and CD133 double positivity in the prognosis of oral cancer. The significance of PKC-δ, one of the key signaling molecules that regulates CXCR-4, was also analyzed. Immunohistochemistry and double immunofluorescence was used to investigate the co-localization of CXCR-4, PKC-δ and CD133 in the human tissues and cell lines of oral squamous cell carcinoma. The expression of CXCR-4, PKC-δ and CD133 were found to be higher in poorly differentiated and lymph node metastasis-positive cases. Interestingly, CXCR-4 positive cells showed positive staining for PKC-δ and CD133 in oral cancer tissue and cell lines. Moreover, CXCR-4+/CD133+ and CXCR-4+/ PKC-δ+ double positive cases have the worst survival. We discovered, for the first time, that...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research