Autophagy modulation is a potential therapeutic strategy for tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC). Melatonin possesses significant anticarcinogenic activity. However, whether melatonin induces autophagy and its roles in cell death in TSCC are unclear. Herein, we show that melatonin induced significant apoptosis in the TSCC cell line Cal27. Apart from the induction of apoptosis, we demonstrated that melatonin-induced autophagic flux in Cal27 cells as evidenced by the formation of GFP-LC3 puncta, and the upregulation of LC3-II and downregulation of SQSTM1/P62. Moreover, pharmacological or genetic blockage of autophagy enhanced melatonin-induced apoptosis, indicating a cytoprotective role of autophagy in melatonin-treated Cal27 cells. Mechanistically, melatonin induced TFE3 dephosphorylation, subsequently activated TFE3 nuclear translocation, and increased TFE3 reporter activity, which contributed to the expression of autophagy-related genes and lysosomal biogenesis. Luzindole, a melatonin membrane receptor blocker, or MT2-siRNA partially blocked the ability of melatonin to promote mTORC1/TFE3 signaling. Furthermore, we verified in a xenograft mouse model that melatonin with hydroxychloroquine or TFE3-siRNA exerted a synergistic antitumor effect by inhibiting autophagy. Importantly, TFE3 expression positively correlated with TSCC development and poor prognosis in patients. Collectively, we demonstrated that the melatonin-induced increase in TFE3-dependent autophagy is mediated through the melatonin membrane receptor in TSCC. These data also suggest that blocking melatonin membrane receptor-TFE3-dependent autophagy to enhance the activity of melatonin warrants further attention as a treatment strategy for TSCC.

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N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification is the most prevalent modification on eukaryotic RNA, and the m6A modification regulators were involved in the progression of various cancers. However, the functions of m6A regulators in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remain poorly understood. In this study, we demonstrated that 13 of 19 m6A-related genes in OSCC tissues are dysregulated, and HNRNPA2B1 was the most prognostically important locus of the 19 m6A regulatory genes in OSCC. Moreover, HNRNPA2B1 expression is elevated in OSCC, and a high level of HNRNPA2B1 is significantly associated with poor overall survival in OSCC patients. Functional studies, combined with further analysis of the correlation between the expression of HNRNPA2B1 and the EMT-related markers from the TCGA database, reveal that silencing HNRNPA2B1 suppresses the proliferation, migration, and invasion of OSCC via EMT. Collectively, our work shows that HNRNPA2B1 may have the potential to promote carcinogenesis of OSCC by targeting EMT via the LINE-1/TGF-β1/Smad2/Slug signaling pathway and provide insight into the critical roles of HNRNPA2B1 in OSCC.

Surgical site infection (SSI) frequently occurs in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) after tumor resection and can lead to death in severe cases. Moreover, there is no de nitive conclusion about the risk factors of SSI. Therefore, it is of great clinical signi cance to study the factors affecting the SSI. MethodsThe HNC patients included in this study were all from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University (CSU), and these patients received surgical treatment in the department from January 2018 to December 2019. Univariate and multivariate regression analysis was applied to determine the risk factors of SSI. To identify the key risk factors of SSI, the caret package was used to construct three different machine learning models to investigate important features involving 26 SSI-related risk factors. ResultsParticipants were 632 HNC patients who underwent surgery in our department from January 2018 to December 2019. During the postoperative period, 82 patients suffered from SSI and surgical site infection rate (SSIR) was about 12.97%. Diabetes mellitus, tumor site ( oor of mouth) and ap failure were consistently ranked the top three in the 26 SSI-related risk factors. In addition, SSI can increase postoperative hospital stays and ap failure rate. ConclusionDiabetes mellitus, tumor site ( oor of mouth), ap failure, preoperative radiotherapy, neck dissection (bilateral) are risk factors for SSI of HNC.Many risk factors of SSI have been reported in previous studies. Such as advanced age, diabetes, smoking, preoperative radiotherapy, prior surgery, preoperative chemotherapy, advanced American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, low preoperative white blood cell (WBC) count, hypoalbuminemia, intraoperative blood transfusion, tracheotomy, contaminated wounds, lymph node metastasis and reconstruction with myocutaneous aps or microvascular-free aps, etc. [5,7,[10][11][12][13]. However, due to the differences in study methodology, number of patients and sample size, there are still some disputes in different studies. For example, whether diabetes, tumor location or previous radiotherapy can be regarded as potential risk factors for SSI causes controversy [5,14,15]. Coskun, et.al. found diabetes mellitus, tumor location and history of prior radiotherapy were not associated statistically with wound infection in head and neck surgery (HNS) [16]. Sepehr, et al. found diabetes was not a risk factor for infection after HNS [17]. Similarly, Hitomi, et.al indicated that age, body mass index, smoking, diabetes, sex, previous radiotherapy or ASA score were not correlated with SSI [12]. However, Milap D. et.al showed HNC patients with diabetes have signi cantly greater rates of postoperative infections [18]. Margita, et.al indicated that gender, smoking, tumor localization and neck dissection were signi cantly related to the occurrence of wound infection [19]. So far, there is no clear de nition of risk factors for SSI of HNC surgery.In addition, these SSI...

Background Head and neck cancers are aggressive cancers, most clinical studies focused on the prognosis of patients with head and neck cancer. However, perioperative mortality was rarely mentioned. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed using all head and neck cancer patients admitting in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University from January 2010 to December 2019. The analysis of overall survival and progression-free survival were performed using the Kaplan–Meier method, and cross tabulation with chi-squared testing was applied to analyze the difference in parameters between groups. Results From January 2010 to December 2019, a total of 6576 patients with head and neck cancers were admitted to our department and 7 died in the hospital, all of whom were middle-aged and elderly patients including 6 males and 1 female. The perioperative mortality rate (POMR) was about 1‰. The causes of death included acute heart failure, rupture of large blood vessels in the neck, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy due to asphyxia, respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest. Conclusion Preoperative radiotherapy, previous chemotherapy, hypertension, diabetes, advanced clinical stage and postoperative infection are risk factors for perioperative mortality of head and neck cancer.

Background: Head and neck Synovial sarcoma (SS) accounts for 3-10% of all total body SS. It is rare to find it in the oral cavity, especially on the floor of the mouth. Case presentation: We present a 44-year-old Chinese male, who had been misdiagnosed as fibroadenoma, with a swelling on the right submandibular region for more than 3 months. The radiology examinations and the pathology results indicate the diagnosis of SS of the floor of the mouth. The patient only had a surgical operation, without radiotherapy and chemotherapy. At the first follow-up, the patient exhibited no clinical or radiographic complications, and the patient was asymptomatic on subsequent visits. Conclusions: Misdiagnosis results the delay of diagnosis and treatment of SS. Immunohistological analysis might be the most important tool to confirm the diagnosis of SS.

Background: Head and neck cancers are aggressive cancers, most clinical studies focused on the prognosis of patients with head and neck cancer. However, perioperative mortality was few mentioned.Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed using all head and neck cancer patients admitting in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University from January 2010 to December 2019. The analysis of overall survival and progression-free survival were performed using the Kaplan–Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analyses employed a logistic regression model to determine the effect of study parameters on perioperative mortality. Results: From January 2010 to December 2019, a total of 6972 patients with head and neck cancers were admitted to our department and 7 died in the hospital, all of whom were middle-aged and elderly patients including 6 males and 1 female. The perioperative mortality rate (POMR) was about 1‰. The causes of death included acute heart failure, rupture of large blood vessels in the neck, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy due to asphyxia, respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest. Conclusion: Prior radiotherapy, postoperative infection, hypertension and diabetes are risk factors for perioperative mortality of head and neck cancer.

Cell-derived decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) plays a vital role in controlling cell functions because of its similarity to the in vivo microenvironment. In the process of stem cell differentiation, the...