Clinical Cancer Research, Vol 3, Issue 1 111-114, Copyright © 1997 by American Association for Cancer Research

ARTICLES

Overexpression and amplification of glutathione S-transferase pi gene in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

X Wang, ZP Pavelic, Y Li, L Gleich, PS Gartside, L Pavelic, JL Gluckman and PJ Stambrook
Departments of Cell Biology, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267, USA.

Human glutathione S-transferase pi (GST-pi) may serve as a useful tumor marker because of the high frequency with which it is found in elevated levels in several tumor types. To determine whether GST-pi is useful as an indicator for cancers of the head and neck, expression of GST-pi mRNA was investigated by Northern analysis in this tumor type. Overexpression of GST-pi mRNA was detected in 9 of 36 (25%) primary head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs). When Southern blot analysis was used to examine the relationship between overexpression and amplification of the GST-pi gene, only 3 of 36 tumors (8%) showed GST-pi gene amplification. Thus, gene amplification is not critical to GST-pi mRNA overexpression in HNSCCs. Moderately and poorly differentiated HNSCCs tended to manifest elevated GST-pi mRNA compared with well differentiated tumors (30% for moderately and poorly differentiated tumors versus none of the well differentiated tumors examined). However, there was no significant correlation between GST-% mRNA overexpression and clinical stage, T stage (tumor size), N stage (neck nodal status), pathological nodes, or patient survival.

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