Abstract. Recent findings suggest that upregulated a disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM)10 expression participates in the progression of multiple types of cancer. However, the expression pattern and clinicopathological significance of ADAM10, and its potential prognostic role in laryngeal carcinoma remains to be explored. The present study firstly determined the significantly elevated expression status of ADAM10 protein and messenger RNA in laryngeal carcinoma tissues compared with that in adjacent non-tumor tissues by western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis. Next, the expression of ADAM10 and the proliferation marker Ki-67 was examined in 78 laryngeal carcinoma and 35 adjacent non-tumor specimens using immunohistochemistry. Overexpressed ADAM10 in laryngeal carcinoma was detected, which correlated with T classification (P<0.01), clinical stage (P<0.01), pathology (P=0.034) and Ki-67 expression (P<0.01). Furthermore, the expression of ADAM10 was positively correlated with the expression of Ki-67 (R 2 = 0.22; P<0.01). The Kaplan-Meier method revealed that the group with overexpressed ADAM10 exhibited shorter overall survival time compared with those with low ADAM10 expression. Our findings indicated that ADAM10 serves a notable role in the progression and prognosis of laryngeal carcinoma.
IntroductionLaryngeal cancer is estimated to be the second most common malignancy of the head and neck, and it has a high mortality rate and a poor prognosis (1,2). The majority of laryngeal carcinoma patients are middle-aged males (3,4). The primary risk factors are endogenic and exogenic factors such as tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption (4,5). Although multiple and advanced therapeutic interventions have been developed, the majority of laryngeal cancer patients present late to hospital, which leads to reduced therapeutic efficacy and increased rate of recurrence (2). Therefore, the development of highly efficacious treatments, as well as better diagnostic and preventive measures, require a better understanding of the molecular and pathogenic mechanisms of laryngeal cancer.A disintegrins and metalloproteinases (ADAMs) are primarily located in the cell membrane, and have been shown to be involved in the proteolytic degradation of cell membrane proteins for remodelling or processing (6). Thus, ADAM family members, including ADAM10, serve pivotal roles in the pathogenesis or progression of cancers, including proliferation, angiogenesis, migration and invasion (6-9). Analysis of gene expression profiles revealed that the ADAM10 gene was significantly overexpressed in a wide variety of human malignancies, including hepatocellular carcinoma, melanoma, oral squamous cell carcinoma, lung cancer, pancreatic carcinoma, and gastric and bladder cancer (10-17). Accumulating evidence has illustrated that ADAM10 contributed to the regulation of cancer progression, chemoresistance and metastasis via the cleavage of growth factors or cell surface proteins (6,8,10,12,(18)(19)(20)(21)....