BACKGROUND: Transgelin is supposed to be a tumor suppression gene and it is down-regulated in a variety of human cancers. However, the role of transgelin in different cancers is still very controversial. In addition, currently little information is available the relationship between transgelin and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Western Blotting was performed to test the transgelin protein expression level in OSCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues. Real-time PCR was used to examine the expression level of transgelin mRNA in tissue, serum and saliva of OSCC patients and negative controls. The correlation between tissue and salivary transgelin mRNA expression level with a variety of clinical parameters was further studied.

RESULTS: Transgelin protein expression was increased in OSCC patients compared with healthy individuals. Similarly, the expression level of both tissue and salivary transgelin mRNA were increased significantly in patients with OSCC in comparison with normal controls. However, little difference of serum transgelin mRNA expression was found between the OSCC patients and healthy controls. In addition, overexpression of tissue or salivary transgelin was closely associated with various clinical parameters including poorer overall survival. Furthermore, our results showed that tissue and salivary transgelin mRNA were independent prognosis factors for OSCC.

CONCLUSIONS: The expressions level of tissue mRNA and protein were increased in OSCC patients. Both tissue and salivary transgelin mRNA were closely correlated with various important clinicopathological parameters and were independent prognosis factors for OSCC, indicating they might serve promising biomarkers for OSCC.

Keywords: Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - pathology, Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism, Case-Control Studies, Head and Neck Neoplasms - pathology, Microfilament Proteins - metabolism, Mouth Neoplasms - pathology, Muscle Proteins - metabolism, RNA, Messenger - metabolism, RNA, Neoplasm - metabolism, Saliva - metabolism