Amplification of the and Are Coordinated and Play Important Roles in the Progression of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinomas.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a common cancer in Taiwan and worldwide. To provide some clues for clinical management of OSCC, 72 advanced-stage OSCCs were analyzed using two microarray platforms (26 cases with Affymetrix 500 K and 46 cases with Affymetrix SNP 6.0). Genomic identification of significant targets in cancer analyses were used to identify significant copy number alterations (CNAs) using a -value cutoff of 0.25. Among the several significant regions, 12 CNAs were common between these two platforms. Two gain regions contained the well-known oncogenes (7p11.2) and (11q13.3) and several known cancer suppressor genes, such as (3p14.2-p12.1), (4q35.1), (9p21.3), and (11q22.3-q24.3), reside within the 10 deletion regions. Copy number gains of and were further confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization and TaqMan CN assay, respectively, in 257 OSCC cases. Our results indicate that and CNAs are significantly associated with clinical stage, tumor differentiation, and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, and CNAs have an additive effect on OSCC tumor progression. Thus, current genome-wide CNA analysis provides clues for future characterization of important oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes associated with the behaviors of the disease.