Protein microarray analysis of apoptosis-related protein expression following heat shock in human tongue squamous cell carcinomas containing different p53 phenotypes

Abstract

Purpose: Hyperthermia is useful in the treatment of human head and neck cancers, because it is relatively easy to regulate temperatures when compared to tumors located in deep organs. In this study, attention was focused on p53 as a possible predictive indicator for the efficacy of hyperthermic cancer therapy.

Methods: Two kinds of cell lines were used. These were derived from a human squamous cell carcinoma (SAS) and had identical genetic backgrounds except for their p53 gene status. It was previously reported that the heat sensitivity and frequency of apoptosis in wild-type p53 cells (SAS/neo) were clearly elevated when compared with mutated p53 cells (SAS/mp53). In order to study the expression of apoptosis related proteins after heat treatment, protein microarray analysis was used.

Results: The expression of apoptosis inhibitory proteins such as Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, NF-κB, COX2, STAT3, IL-6, and IKKα/1 was seen to increase after heat treatment in SAS/mp53 cells, but not in SAS/neo cells.

Conclusion: The result of these observations indicates that apoptosis inhibitory proteins (such as Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, IL-6, etc.) were highly induced in SAS/mp53 cells after heat treatment when compared to control SAS/neo cells.

• Apoptosis
• protein microarray
• heat
• p53
• human tongue carcinoma