Increased NOTCH1 expression is associated with low survival in moderate/ poor differentiated human oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

Zuhair M Mohammedsaleh; Mamdoh S Moawadh; Fayez M Saleh; Mohammed M Jalal; Abdulaziz S Al-Otaibi; Nizar H Saeedi; Rathinasamy Baskaran; Chih-Yang Huang; V Bharath Kumar

doi:10.7150/jca.87128

Increased NOTCH1 expression is associated with low survival in moderate/ poor differentiated human oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

J Cancer. 2023 Sep 18;14(16):3023-3027. doi: 10.7150/jca.87128. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zuhair M Mohammedsaleh¹, Mamdoh S Moawadh¹, Fayez M Saleh², Mohammed M Jalal¹, Abdulaziz S Al-Otaibi¹, Nizar H Saeedi¹, Rathinasamy Baskaran³, Chih-Yang Huang⁴, V Bharath Kumar⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Bioinformatics and Medical Engineering, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology, Asia University, Taichung 413, Taiwan.

Abstract

Notch deregulation has been reported in various types of cancers, including Oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs). The role of Notch1 signaling in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains poorly understood. In this study, NOTCH1 was aberrantly expressed in human oral cancer tissues compared with that in normal marginal tissues and was associated with poor prognosis. The positive Notch 1 expression was significantly associated with poor tumor differentiation status. Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed that elevated cytoplasmic NOTCH1 expression levels in OSCC patients were associated with poor overall survival. Moreover, multivariate COX proportional hazard models revealed that T N status, AJCC stage histological grade were independent prognostic factors for survival. Our result clearly demonstrates the oncogenic role of Notch1 in oral cancer and Notch1 may be a useful biomarker to target oral cancer patients.

Keywords: IHC; Notch1; Oral cancer; mortality; survival; tumor differentiation.