Molecular profile of oral squamous cell carcinoma with linfonodal mtastasis: microarray and functional analysis

• Grant number: 10/18581-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2011
• End date: August 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Dentistry
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Daumas Nunes
• Grantee: Lília Alves Rocha
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Odontologia (FO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 10/51168-0 - Environmental, clinical, histopathological and molecular factors associated with development and prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, AP.TEM

Abstract

The oral squamous cell carcinoma is a common cancer disease with tobacco and alcohol consumption as main risk factors. Nowadays, patient's survival in five years after the disease diagnosis is low, although the efforts in cancer research and the progress in diagnosis and therapy strategies. The presence of lymph node metastasis is one of most important prognosis indicator of oral squamous cell carcinoma. Until now, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of oral squamous cell carcinoma metastasis are not well comprehended. The microarray methodology allows individual gene evaluation but also gene groups that are tidily expressed to generate a molecular signature of biological state. However, the expression is affected by clinical variables as age, location, clinical staging, among others. The objective of this project is to understand the genes function with high and low expression in the oral squamous cell carcinoma patient's group with a defined clinical profile and staging T2N+. The gene profile of this group will be compared with the gene profile of other group with similar clinical information but staging T2N0, by the microarray methodology. The selected genes will be analyzed using over expression and silencing of genes techniques in oral squamous cell carcinoma lineages. This study is the first initiative to find important genes of metastasis mechanism of oral squamous cell carcinoma in a defined profile of patients group.