Deciphering heme oxygenase-1 role in head and neck cancer.

MASCARÓ, M.; GANDINI, N.A.; ALONSO, E.N.; COLÓ, G.P.; RABASSA, M.; ABBA, M.C.; PICHEL, P.; RECIO, S.; FERRONATO, M.J.; GRIOLI, S.M.; FERMENTO, M.E.; GUEVARA, J.A.; FACCHINETTI, M.M.; CURINO, A.C.

Congreso; LXIII Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica (SAIC); 2018

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a remarkably heterogeneous disease due to phenotypic, aetiological, biological and clinical characteristics with around 50% mortality, which has propelled research for new approaches to improve patient survival. We previously reported that heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) protein is up-regulated in human HNSCC samples and that it is localized in the cytoplasmic and nuclear compartments; additionally, we demonstrated that HO-1 nuclear localization is associated with malignant progression. In this study, we aim 1) to further evaluate the prognostic utility of HO-1 expression as well as 2) to begin to elucidate which role does HO-1 play in HNSCC pathophysiology. To address our aims we used bioinformatics analysis as well as in culture assays using human HNSCC primary cultures and cell lines. Using in silico analysis from TCGA (N=588) we found that in early stages of HNSCC high expression of HO-1 was associated to decreased overall survival (p