No abstract

Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma are not common in head and neck, these tumors rarely occur in the larynx but both have highly aggressive clinical behavior and a high mortality rate. The diagnosis is complicated by these tumors’ atypical clinical and pathological features. This case details a coexistence of basaloid squamous cell carcinoma and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of a woman in the larynx. The patient underwent endoscopy- and coblation-assisted transoral microsurgery to achieve hyoid horizontal epiglottidectomy and has no recurrence after 12 months of follow-up.

Background The ginsenosides have been reported to possess a variety of biological activities. Synthesized from the ginsenoside Protopanaxadiol (PPD), the octanone Pseudoginsengenin DQ (PDQ) may have stronger pharmacological effects as a secondary ginsenoside. Nevertheless, its antitumor activity and molecular mechanism against hypopharyngeal cancer cells remains unclear. Methods Cell Counting Kit-8, cell cycle assay and cell apoptosis assay were conducted to detect FADU cells proliferation, cell phase and apoptosis. The interactions between PDQ and HIF-1α were investigated by a molecular docking study. The expression of HIF-1α, GLUT1, apoptosis related proteins was tested by western blotting, direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and qRT-PCR. Glucose uptake assay was used to assess the glucose uptake capacity of FADU cells. Results PDQ was found to suppress the proliferation, reduce glucose uptake, induce the cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of FaDu cells. Molecular docking study demonstrated that PDQ could interact with the active site of HIF-1α. PDQ decreased the expression and mRNA levels of HIF-1α and its downstream factor GLUT1. Moreover, dSTORM results showed that PDQ reduced GLUT1 expression on the cell membrane but also inhibited its clustering. Conclusion Our work elucidated that the antitumor effect of PDQ is related to its downregulation of HIF-1α-GLUT1 pathway, suggesting that PDQ could be a potential therapeutic agent for hypopharyngeal cancer treatment.

Background Ginsenosides have been reported to possess a variety of biological activities. Synthesized from the ginsenoside protopanaxadiol (PPD), the octanone pseudoginsengenin DQ (PDQ) may have robust pharmacological effects as a secondary ginsenoside. Nevertheless, its antitumour activity and molecular mechanism against hypopharyngeal cancer cells remain unclear. Methods Cell Counting Kit8 assays, cell cycle assays and cell apoptosis assays were conducted to assess FaDu cell proliferation, cell phase and apoptosis. The interactions between PDQ and HIF-1α were investigated by a molecular docking study. The expression of HIF-1α, GLUT1, and apoptosis-related proteins was detected by Western blotting, direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and qRT-PCR. A glucose uptake assay was used to assess the glucose uptake capacity of FaDu cells. Results PDQ suppressed proliferation, reduced glucose uptake, and induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in FaDu cells. A molecular docking study demonstrated that PDQ could interact with the active site of HIF-1α. PDQ decreased the expression and mRNA levels of HIF-1α and its downstream factor GLUT1. Moreover, the dSTORM results showed that PDQ reduced GLUT1 expression on the cell membrane and inhibited GLUT1 clustering. Conclusion Our work showed that the antitumour effect of PDQ was related to the downregulation of the HIF-1α-GLUT1 pathway, suggesting that PDQ could be a potential therapeutic agent for hypopharyngeal cancer treatment.