Purpose: To investigate the expression and significance of YAP and TAZ proteins in oral squamous cell carcinoma.
Methods: From February 2014 to March 2017, 113 oral squamous cell carcinoma specimens were selected, and the adjacent tissues (away from carcinoma >2 cm) were selected as the control. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression of YAP and TAZ protein, and its relationship with clinicopathological features were evaluated with SPSS 19.0 software package.
Results: The positive rate of YAP and TAZ protein in cancer tissues was 65.49% and 61.95%, respectively, which was significantly higher than that in the adjacent tissues (P<0.05). The positive expression of YAP protein in patients with low differentiation, cervical lymph node metastasis, stage Ⅲ, tumor diameter>4 cm were 83.64%, 80.33%, 82.35% and 82.61%, significantly higher than that inpatients with high differentiation, without cervical lymph node metastasis, stage I-II, tumor diameter ≤4 cm (P<0.05). The positive expression rate of TAZ protein in patients with low differentiation, stage III, tumor diameter >4 cm was 80%, 85.29% and 82.61%, significantly higher than that in patients with high differentiation, stage I-II, tumor diameter ≤4 cm (P<0.05). The expression of YAP protein was positively correlated with the expression of TAZ protein (rs=0.571, P<0.05).
Conclusions: YAP and TAZ proteins are strongly expressed in oral squamous cell carcinoma, closely related to the clinical and pathological features such as the degree of differentiation and the diameter of the tumor, suggesting that Hippo signaling pathway may be involved in the development of oral squamous cell carcinoma.