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Head and Neck Cancers 2.0: Diagnostics, Prognostic Biomarkers and Therapeutic Advances for Primary Tumors and Metastasis

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A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2020) | Viewed by 7132

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Stefania Staibano

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Guest Editor

Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University “Federico II”, 80131 Naples, Italy
Interests: solid tumor phenotyping; prognostic tumor biomarkers; predictive tumor biomarkers; immunohistochemistry; in situ proteomics; head and neck cancer; tissue biomarkers for new therapy protocols (i.e., immunotherapy); digital pathology applied to tumor phenotyping
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The biology of head and neck (H&N) cancers shows a high rate of inter- and intra-tumor variability, as well as the morphology and cancer stage at diagnosis.

As a rule, a lower survival of H&N cancer patients has been associated with either the up-regulation of the genes involved in cell growth and the proliferation and down-regulation of genes involved in cellular differentiation. However, recently, systems biology analysis has revealed that the gene expression of individual H&N cancers may show a level of molecular heterogeneity that exceeds the variation observed between distinct cancer histotypes.

To this end, the various prognostic biomarkers proposed to individualize the evaluation of the clinical outcomes are inapplicable to all H&N cancers.

There is an urgent need to generate personalized genomic, metabolic, and phenotypic-scale models to identify the molecular mechanisms and key drivers of tumor growth and the metastasizing ability of each H&N cancer case.

We need to fully understand the impressive heterogeneity of these cancers, turning the gap of the molecular differences toward a powerful new tool for the personalized medicine for H&N cancer treatment.

This monothematic Issue aims to gather the most recent in-depth studies about H&N cancers, ranging from the analysis of the available active open access genome and proteome databases, to the exploration of the impact of the individual protein expression on the biological aggressiveness of cancers, exploring the molecular routes for the prediction of responses to conventional radio/chemotherapy and/or target or immunotherapy, also using systems-level analyses of the significance of H&N cancer molecular alterations.

Prof. Dr. Stefania Staibano
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

H&N cancer biology
Tumor heterogeneity
Tissue prognostic biomarkers
Predictive tissue biomarkers
System level analysis

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 2295 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ceramide-Enriched Membrane Domains Contribute to Targeted and Nontargeted Effects of Radiation through Modulation of PI3K/AKT Signaling in HNSCC Cells

by Riad Ladjohounlou, Safa Louati, Alexandra Lauret, Arnaud Gauthier, Dominique Ardail, Nicolas Magne, Gersende Alphonse and Claire Rodriguez-Lafrasse

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(19), 7200; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21197200 - 29 Sep 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1967

Abstract

We investigated the potential involvement of ceramide-enriched membrane domains in radiation-induced targeted and nontargeted effects using head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with opposite radiosensitivities. In radiosensitive SCC61 cells, the proportion of targeted effects was 34% and nontargeted effects killed 32% of cells. In contrast, only targeted effects (30%) are involved in the overall death of radioresistant SQ20B cells. We then demonstrated in SCC61 cells that nontargeted cell response was driven by the formation of the radiation-induced ceramide-enriched domain. By contrast, the existence of these platforms in SQ20B cells confers a permissive region for phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT activation. The disruption of lipid raft results in strong inhibition of PI3K/AKT signaling, leading to radiosensitization and apparition of nontargeted effects. These results suggest that ceramide-enriched platforms play a significant role in targeted and nontargeted effects during radiotherapy and that drugs modulating cholesterol levels may be a good alternative for improving radiotherapy effectiveness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Head and Neck Cancers 2.0: Diagnostics, Prognostic Biomarkers and Therapeutic Advances for Primary Tumors and Metastasis)

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10 pages, 1030 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Downregulation of TAP1 in Tumor-Free Tongue Contralateral to Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Tongue, an Indicator of Better Survival

by Nima Attaran, Xiaolian Gu, Philip J. Coates, Robin Fåhraeus, Linda Boldrup, Torben Wilms, Lixiao Wang, Nicola Sgaramella, Katarina Zborayova and Karin Nylander

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(17), 6220; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21176220 - 27 Aug 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2175

Abstract

Oral cancers are surrounded by epithelium that histologically might seem normal, but genetically has aberrations. In patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue (SCCOT), it is therefore important to study not only the tumor but also the clinically tumor-free contralateral tongue tissue that remains in the patient after treatment to map changes of prognostic and/or diagnostic value. The transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) dimer is a key factor in the process of activating cytotoxic T cells. By downregulating the expression of TAP, tumor cells can escape cytotoxic T cell recognition. Biopsies from tumor and clinically tumor-free contralateral tongue tissue in 21 patients with SCCOT were analyzed together with tongue biopsies from 14 healthy individuals, which served as the control group. Dividing patients into TAP1-high and TAP1-low groups according to the median TAP1 level in tumor-free samples showed that patients with lower TAP1 mRNA levels in tumor-free samples had better overall (p = 0.003) and disease-free survival (p = 0.002). The results showing that TAP1 levels in tumor-free tongue tissue contralateral to the SCCOT correlate with survival is an important contribution to early diagnosis and follow up of SCCOT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Head and Neck Cancers 2.0: Diagnostics, Prognostic Biomarkers and Therapeutic Advances for Primary Tumors and Metastasis)

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Review

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17 pages, 658 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Impact of Angiogenesis in the Most Common Salivary Gland Malignant Tumors

by Despoina Pouloudi, Aristoteles Sotiriadis, Margarita Theodorakidou, Panagiotis Sarantis, Alexandros Pergaris, Michalis V. Karamouzis and Stamatios Theocharis

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(24), 9335; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21249335 - 08 Dec 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2437

Abstract

Salivary gland carcinomas (SGCs) represent a group of rare tumors, with complete surgical resection being the main treatment option. Therapeutic armory for cases of locally aggressive, recurrent, and/or metastatic SGCs, though, remains poor since they exhibit high rates of resistance to systematic therapy. Angiogenesis is considered one of the contemporary hallmarks of cancer and anti-angiogenic factors have already been approved for the treatment of several cancer types. This review aims to summarize, in a histotype-specific manner, the most current available data on the angiogenic factors implicated in SGC angiogenesis, in order to highlight the differences between the most common SGC histotypes and the factors that may have a potential role as therapeutic targets. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Head and Neck Cancers 2.0: Diagnostics, Prognostic Biomarkers and Therapeutic Advances for Primary Tumors and Metastasis)

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