Induced Pluripotent-stem-cell Related Genes Contribute to De-differentiation in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Background/aim: Cancer stem cells are suspected to contribute to malignancy in tumors. Hypoxia affects cell differentiation and induces stem-cell-like characteristics in malignancies. Induced pluripotency was demonstrated in mouse fibroblasts by reprogramming with four transcriptional factors: Oct3/4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4. Conversely, oncogenic transformations frequently express transcriptional factors and Nanog. Therefore, cancer cells present some similarities with induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.
Materials and Methods: We investigated the expression of iPS-related genes in vitro and in clinical samples to identify their relationships with hypoxia and tumorigenesis.
Results: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells were used to show that expression levels of Oct3/4, Sox2, and Nanog were significantly increased in hypoxic condition in vitro and in moderately- and poorly-differentiated samples.
Conclusion: We propose that Oct3/4, Sox2 and Nanog are associated with tumor hypoxia characterized in oral SCC and that these factors may also contribute to the undifferentiated potency observed in oral SCC clinically.
(Copyright© 2017, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)