Premium
Predicting clinical outcome in feline oral squamous cell carcinoma: tumour initiating cells, telomeres and telomerase
Author(s) -
Yoshikawa H.,
Mara D. G.,
Battaglia C. L. R.,
Ehrhart E. J.,
Charles J. B.,
Bailey S. M.,
LaRue S. M.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
veterinary and comparative oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1476-5829
pISSN - 1476-5810
DOI - 10.1111/vco.12117
Subject(s) - telomerase , telomere , medicine , oncology , head and neck squamous cell carcinoma , basal cell , cd44 , pathology , cell , gastroenterology , radiation therapy , cancer research , head and neck cancer , biology , dna , biochemistry , genetics , gene
Feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) has very poor prognosis. Here, a retrospective pilot study was conducted on 20 feline oral SCC patients who underwent stereotactic radiation therapy (SRT), to evaluate: (1) the value of putative tumour initiating cell (TIC) markers of human head and neck SCC (CD44, Bmi‐1); (2) telomere length (TL) specifically in putative TICs; and (3) tumour relative telomerase activity (TA). Significant inverse correlations were found between treatment outcomes and Bmi‐1 expression, supporting the predictive value of Bmi‐1 as a negative prognostic indicator. While TL exhibited a wide range of variability, particularly in very short fractions, many tumours possessed high levels of TA, which correlated with high levels of Bmi‐1, Ki67 and EGFR. Taken together, our results imply that Bmi‐1 and telomerase may represent novel therapeutic targets in feline oral SCC, as their inhibition – in combination with SRT – would be expected to have beneficial treatment outcome.