Molecular signatures of metastasis in head and neck cancer

Background. Metastases are the primary cause of cancer treatment failure and death, yet metastatic mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Methods. We studied the molecular basis of head and neck cancer metastasis by transcriptionally profiling 70 samples from 27 patients—matching normal adjacent...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Head & neck 2008-10, Vol.30 (10), p.1273-1283
Main Authors: Colella, Stefano, Richards, Kristy L., Bachinski, Linda L., Baggerly, Keith A., Tsavachidis, Spiridon, Lang, James C., Schuller, David E., Krahe, Ralf
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Biopsy
Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - genetics
Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - secondary
expression profiling
Frozen Sections
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
gene signatures
head and neck cancer
Head and Neck Neoplasms - genetics
Head and Neck Neoplasms - pathology
Human health and pathology
Humans
Life Sciences
Lymphatic Metastasis
Medical sciences
metastasis
oncogenomics
Otorhinolaryngology (head neck, general aspects and miscellaneous)
Otorhinolaryngology. Stomatology
Transcription, Genetic
Tumors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background. Metastases are the primary cause of cancer treatment failure and death, yet metastatic mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Methods. We studied the molecular basis of head and neck cancer metastasis by transcriptionally profiling 70 samples from 27 patients—matching normal adjacent tissue, primary tumor, and cervical lymph node metastases. Results. We identified tumor‐associated expression signatures common to both primary tumors and metastases. Use of matching metastases revealed an additional 46 dysregulated genes associated solely with head and neck cancer metastasis. However, despite being metastasis‐specific in our sample set, these 46 genes are concordant with genes previously discovered in primary tumors that metastasized. Conclusions. Although our data and related studies show that most of the metastatic potential appears to be inherent to the primary tumor, they are also consistent with the notion that a limited number of additional clonal changes are necessary to yield the final metastatic cell(s), albeit in a variable temporal order. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 2008
ISSN:1043-3074
1097-0347
DOI:10.1002/hed.20871