[Expression levels of MMP-14, ING4 and HIF-1α in 60 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma and their clinical significance].

Purpose: To investigate the expression of metalloproteinase-14 (MMP-14), growth inhibitory factor 4 (ING4) and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and their clinical significance, to provide references for clinical diagnosis and treatment of OSCC.

Methods: Sixty patients with OSCC admitted to our hospital from July 2014 to July 2019 were enrolled in this study. The tissue specimen of 60 patients were prepared into paraffin sections as the experimental group, while 20 cases of normal oral mucosal tissue were paraffin-embedded as the control group. Immunohistochemical S-P method was used to analyze the positive expression levels of MMP-14, ING4 and HIF-1α in oral mucosa of the two groups. The relationship between the 3 indicators and the different clinicopathological features of OSCC patients was analyzed, the correlation of the expression level between 3 protein was also calculated. SPSS 23.0 software package was used for statistical analysis of the data.

Results: The positive expression rate of ING4 in OSCC patients was 41.7% (25/60), which was significantly lower than 70.0% (14/20) in the control group (P<0.05). The positive expression rates of MMP-14 and HIF-1α were 68.3% (41/60), 71.7% (43/60), respectively, significantly higher than 20.0% (4/20) and 15.0% (3/20) of the control group. The difference between the 2 groups was statistically significant (P<0.01). The positive expression rate of the 3 proteins was significantly correlated with TNM stage, differentiation and cervical lymph node metastasis (P<0.05). In OSCC tissues, there was a significant negative correlation between ING4 and HIF-1α or MMP-14 expression (r=-0.39, -0.51, P<0.01), while HIF-1α and MMP-14 expression was significantly positively correlated with the clinical features (r= 0.45, P<0.01).

Conclusions: MMP-14, ING4 and HIF-1α are closely related to the progression of OSCC. Down-regulation of ING4 can promote up-regulation of MMP-14 and HIF-1α, and ultimately promote formation, growth, invasion and metastasis of OSCC. The expression levels of the 3 proteins can be used as important indicators for judging the clinical features and prognosis of patients with OSCC.