Our results show that GSK3β plays a major role in maintenance of stemness of CD44(high) /ALDH1(high) HNSCC cells. Additionally, they indicate a close relationship between CSC and mesenchymal characteristics in HNSCC.

No abstract

The records of 70 patients with oral cancer who were treated at a single institution between 2008 and 2014 were reviewed. The body temperature, white blood cell count, and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were compared between those who had received preoperative oral care (oral care group) and those who had not received any (non-oral care group). When the patients were divided into those who underwent minimally invasive surgery and those who underwent severely invasive surgery, the mean CRP level in the early postoperative period was lower in the oral care group as compared with the non-oral care group in those who underwent minimally invasive surgery as well as those who underwent severely invasive surgery. However, the mean CRP level was most evidently reduced in the severely invasive group on days 1 and 3-5. However, no significant differences were observed with regard to the percentage of postoperative infectious complications (for example, surgical site infection, anastomotic leak and pneumonia) between the oral care (13.6%) and non-oral care (20.8%) groups, though a reduced prevalence of postoperative complications following preoperative oral care was noted. The results of the present study suggest that preoperative oral care can decrease inflammation during the early postoperative stage in patients with oral cancer who undergo severely invasive surgery.

We established an immortalized AM cell line by hTERT transfection. TNF-α-mediated regulation of MMP-9 and IL-6 via NF-κB may play an important role in the pathological behaviour of AMs, such as bone resorption.

Oral keratinocytes provide the first line of host defense against oral candidiasis. We speculated that interactions of fungal cell wall components with oral keratinocytes regulate the stress response against infection and examined the expression of genes induced by heat-killed in oral immortalized keratinocytes using a cDNA microarray technique. Of 24,000 genes revealed by that analysis, we focused on HO-1, a stress-inducible gene, as its expression was increased by both heat-killed and live In histological findings, HO-1 expression in the superficial layers of the oral epithelium following infection was elevated compared to that in healthy epithelium. We then investigated fungal cell wall components involved in induction of HO-1 expression and found that β-glucan-containing particles (β-GPs) increased its expression. Furthermore, β-glucan was observed on the surface of both heat-killed and cells that had invaded the oral epithelium. Fungal β-GPs also promoted induction of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), NADPH oxidase activation, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation, while those specific inhibitors inhibited the HO-1 expression induced by fungal β-GPs. Moreover, fungal β-GPs induced Nrf2 translocation into nuclei via p38 MAPK signaling, while the HO-1 expression induced by fungal β-GPs was inhibited by Nrf2-specific small interfering RNA (siRNA). Finally, knockdown of cells by HO-1- and Nrf2-specific siRNAs resulted in increased β-GP-mediated ROS production compared to that in the control cells. Our results show that the HO-1 induced by fungal β-GPs via ROS/p38 MAPK/Nrf2 from oral keratinocytes may have important roles in host defense against the stress caused by infection in the oral epithelium.