A clinicopathological exploration of Hedgehog signaling: implications in oral carcinogenesis

Abstract

Introduction: Hedgehog Signaling, a basic cancer stem cell pathway, plays a major role during the embryonic development, is known to play a quiescent role in adults. However, aberrant activation of Hedgehog signaling in adults is known to play a role in cancer development. Hence, the aim of the study was to identify the role of Hedgehog signaling pathway in the Oral cancers.

Materials and methods: The expression of Hedgehog signaling pathway was evaluated in 124 patients through the quantitative real-time PCR. The association between the gene expression and clinico-pathological parameters were analyzed using the Pearson chi-square test and survival analysis was carried out using Kaplan-Meier analysis.

Results: SHH and GLI1 was found to be significantly associated with the Lymph Node Status and SUFU was significantly associated with the Age. SMO and SUFU were found to have a worse prognosis in oral cancer patients. According to our findings, IHH plays a critical role in the activation of the HH signaling pathway in oral cancer.

Conclusion: These findings back up the use of the Hedgehog signaling pathway as a biomarker for early disease prediction in oral cancer, as well as its role in tumor aggressiveness and invasiveness.

Keywords: Cancer stem cells; Gene expression; Hedgehog pathway; Oral cancer; Survival analysis.