Expression And Clinical Significance Of NEK2 And HOXA7 In The Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective:To detect the expression and the clinical significance of Never in Mitosis Gene A, NIMA-related Kinase 2(NEK2)and homeobox A7(HOXA7)gene(mRNA and protein)in oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC).Method: Real-time absolute quantitative PCR(qPCR) detected the expression of NEK2 and HOXA7 mRNA in 42 OSCC and 20 normaloral mucosa tissues.Meanwhile, the study used immunohistochemistry to detect the expression pattern of NEK2 and HOXA7 proteinin formalin fixed paraffin embedded(FFPE)tissue samples. Results: 1.The mRNA expression of NEK2 in OSCC were found to be significantly upregulated(z =-6.328,P < 0.05) and correlated significantly with different degree of differentiation(z =-5.012,P<0.05) and clinical stage(z =-4.950,P<0.05). We did not find any significant difference in mRNA expression of NEK2 in age(z =-0.365,P>0.05) and gender(z =-3.450, P>0.05). 2.Immunohistochemistry results were in agreement with the qPCR results that NEK2 protein levels were highly expressed OSCC(z=-1.368,P < 0.05) and its protein levels correlated significantly with different degree of differentiation(z=-0.2463,P < 0.05) and clinical stage(z=-5.556, P < 0.05). Similar to qPCR results, we did not find any significant difference in protein expression of NEK2 in age(z=-0.051,P >0.05),gender(z=-0.5464,P>0.05).3.HOXA7 m RNA was found to be highly expressed in OSCC(z=-5.739,P<0.05) and its mRNA correlated significantly with the different degree of differentiation(z=-0.863,P<0.05)and clinical stage(z=-0.756, P<0.05).We did not find any significant diffefrences in age(z=-0.619,P>0.05) and gender(z=-1.801,P>0.05).4. Immunohistochemistry results showed that HOXA7 protein was highly expressed in OSCC(z=-1.105,P<0.05) and that its protein levels were significantly correlated with the different degree of differentiation(z=-0.1233,P <0.05)and clinical stage(z=-4.950,P<0.05). There was no significant difference in age(z=-0.449,P>0.05),gender(z=-0.4601,P>0.05).Conclusion: This study found thatboth NEK2 and HOXA7 gene(mRNA and protein) were highly expressed in OSCC and that their expression levels were correlated with the degree of tumor differentiation and clinical stages.The worse the differentiation degree, the later the clinical stage, the higher the expression of the two factors.