Overexpression of Autophagy-Related 16-Like 1 in Patients with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

[摘要] Dyregulation of autophagy has been reported in various human cancers including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The objective of this study was to link expression of autophagy-related 16-like 1 (ATG16L1), a protein essential for autophagosome formation, to clinical outcome in a cohort of 90 OSCC patients. Expression level of ATG16L1 was assessed by immunohistochemistry and an immunoreactivity score (IRS), ranging from 0 to 9, was assigned to each case. The results were correlated with clinicopathological parameters and outcome of patients. Twenty-seven patients (30 %) exhibited ATG16L1 overexpression as indicated by an IRS of 9. Overexpression of ATG16L1 was significantly associated with disease stage (p�?=�?0.001), size (p�?=�?0.031) of the tumor, lymph node metastasis (p�?=�?0.004), and histological grade (p�?=�?0.038). ATG16L1 overexpression significantly affected the overall survival (p�?=�?0.020) and time to recurrence (p�?=�?0.031) of OSCC patients in Kaplan-Meier analysis. The present study suggested that ATG16L1 may be used as a biomarker for selecting OSCC patients with a more aggressive phenotype.

[学科分类] 生理学与病理学

[关键词] Autophagy-related 16-like 1