Expression and correlation of WWP2, PTEN and p70S6K in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Objective To investigate the expression and correlation of WW domain-containing protein 2 (WWP2) , phophatase and tensinhomolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) and p70 ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K) in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) . Methods Immunohistochemical staining method was used to detect the expression of WWP2, PTEN and p70S6K in the biopsy mucosa tissues from 54 cases of OSCC, 20 cases of oral leukoplakia and 12 cases of normal mucosa. SPSS 16.0 software was used for Kruskal Wallis test, Chi-square test, Fisher′s exact test and spearman rank correlation analysis. Results The strong expression rates of WWP2 and p70S6K were 68.52% and 75.93% in OSCC respectively, which were significantly higher than those in other groups (P<0.05) , including oral leukoplakia (40% and 45%) , and normal mucosa (33.33% and 25%) (P<0.05) . The strong expression rate of PTEN in OSCC was 48.15%, which was significantly lower than that in other groups including oral leukoplakia (85%) and normal mucosa (91.67%) . In all of these tissues, the negative correlations were found between the expression of WWP2 and PTEN (r = -0.236, P = 0.028) as well as PTEN and p70S6K (r = -0.301, P = 0.005) . In contrast, the positive correlations were found between the expression of WWP2 and p70S6K (r = 0.315, P = 0.003) . The expression of WWP2 was correlated with clinical stage and p70S6K was correlated with pathological grade age and lymph node metastasis in OSCC. Conclusion The expressions of WWP2, PTEN and p70S6K were closely related to the occurrence and development of OSCC, they may play an important role in the pathogenesis of OSCC. Key words: Mouth neoplasms; Carcinoma, squamous cell; Oral leukoplakia; WWP2; PTEN; p70S6K