Background: NANOG is an important stem cell transcription factor, with a complex regulation role in human development, determining cell fate, proliferation, and death. After birth, it is expressed at very low levels or is silenced and remains in that state throughout the lifespan. However, NANOG expression is detectable in a proportion of cancer cells that exhibit stem cell-like properties. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) can be the source of malignant transformation, progression and development of metastases.Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) is an extensively studied malignancy that occurs due to accumulated genetic and epigenetic changes. Hence the current study was done to evaluate role of Nanog in Oral Leukoplakia and OSCC.
Aims and Objective: The present study was done to evaluate Nanog role in Oral Leukoplakia and OSCC.
Materials and Methods: 30 normal subjects and 30 patients of Oral Leukoplakia and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) each were included in study. The cases were graded histopathologically using WHO classification for Oral Leukoplakia and Modified Broder’s grading system for OSCC respectively. 30 tissue sections of Oral Leukoplakia and OSCC were subjected to ImmunoHistoChemistry (IHC) with Nanog antibody. Random fields were chosen and 300 cells were counted in five areas and mean percentage of immunopositive cells were calculated. The results were analysed using ANOVA test.
Results: The results demonstrated high mean values of Nanog in tissues with OSCC (2.60) compared to Leukoplakia (2.13) and normal tissue (0.00) with a high level of statistical significance (0.0001). There is also an increase in percentage levels of Nanog with increase in the histological grade of differentiation in Leukoplakia as well as OSCC.
Conclusion: The increased expression of Nanog in patients with OSCC was statistically significant suggesting its role as diagnostic biomarker and can be a therapeutic target for OSCC.
Keywords: Biomarker, Cancer Stem Cell, Embryonic stem cell, Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Pleuripotency.
