Deregulation of Beclin 1 in patients with tobacco-related oral squamous cell carcinoma

Vaishali Kapoor, Daizy Paliwal, S. Baskar Singh, Bidhu Kalyan Mohanti, Satya Narayan Das

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

Autophagy is a physiologically regulated and evolutionary conserved process that plays a critical role in degradation of cytoplasmic proteins and other macromolecules within the lysosomes. Beclin-1, the mammalian orthologue of yeast Atg6, is an important mediator of autophagy that has been studied in many human cancers. However, the expression of Beclin-1 has not yet been investigated in oral cancer. We for the first time investigated the expression of Beclin-1 in serum and tissues and correlated it with the clinic-pathological features of oral cancer patients. m-RNA expression of Beclin-1 was evaluated in tumor and normal areas of surgical specimens from 10 oral cancer patients by real-time PCR. Approximately, 8-fold lower expression (. p<. 0.001) of Beclin-1 mRNA was observed in tumor tissue as compared to the normal tissue. Serum levels of Beclin-1 were evaluated by SPR and ELISA. No significant difference was observed in serum Beclin-1 levels in patients as compared to healthy subjects, similarly no correlation was found between serum levels and clinic-pathological parameters such as stage, lymph node involvement and tumor size. Our results demonstrate that down-regulation of Beclin-1 may play an important role in the development and progression of oral cancer possibly by dysregulation of autophagy in tumor cells.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)764-769
Number of pages6
JournalBiochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
Volume422
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 15 2012

Keywords

  • Autophagy
  • Beclin-1
  • Expression
  • Oral cancer
  • SPR

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