Prognostic significance of NDRG1 expression in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Human N-myc downstream-regulated gene 1 (NDRG1) is a metastasis suppressor gene with several potential functions, including cell differentiation, cell cycle regulation and response to hormones, nickel and stress. The purpose of this study was to investigate the immunoexpression of NDRG1 in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas searching for its role in the clinical course of these tumors. We investigated immunohistochemical expression of NDRG1 protein in 412 tissue microarray cores of tumor samples from 103 patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas and in 110 paraffin-embedded surgical margin sections. The results showed NDRG1 up-regulation in 101/103 (98.1 %) tumor samples, but no expression in any normal tissue sample. Western blot assays confirmed the immunohistochemical findings, suggesting that lower levels of NDRG1 are associated with a high mortality rate. NDRG1 overexpression was related to long-term specific survival (HR = 0.38; p = 0.009), whereas the presence of lymph-node metastasis showed the opposite association with survival (HR = 2.45; p = 0.013). Our findings reinforce the idea that NDRG1 plays a metastasis suppressor role in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas and may be a useful marker for these tumors.

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester upregulates N-myc downstream regulated gene 1 via ERK pathway to inhibit human oral cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo

“…. Regarding OSCC, NDRG1 has been shown to repress cancer cell growth and invasion, and has a positive correlation with survival of OSCC patients . Our data clearly showed that CAPE treatment increased NDRG1, but not NDRG2 and NDRG3, protein expressions in both SAS and OECM‐1 cells (Fig.…”

Metastasis suppressor proteins in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma

“…The importance of NDRG1 expression has been examined in SCCs of the internal organs, in the literature. Dos Santos et al [18] showed significant upregulation of NDRG1 in oral and oropharyngeal SCCs, and concluded that NDRG1 overexpression was significantly correlated with long-term survival. Similar results were also reported by Chang et al [19].…”

Label-free tissue proteomics can classify oral squamous cell carcinoma from healthy tissue in a stage-specific manner

“…Also known as n-myc downstream-regulator protein 1, NDRG1 is a metastasis suppressor gene that inhibits the NF-κB (nuclear factor-κB) pathway, thus inhibiting functions such as angiogenesis, proliferation, migration and invasion [24]. Its over-expression in OSCC has been linked in one study with long-term specific survival [25]. As the n numbers were small in our study, with three stage I and four stage IVa tumours, more investigation will be required to validate these results, especially with regards to the relatively unknown KIAA1217.…”