Establishment and characterization of an oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line from a never-smoking patient

A Novel Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Line Escapes from Immune Recognition due to Genetic Alterations in HLA Class I Complex

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have made progress in the field of anticancer treatment, but a certain number of PD-L1 negative OSCC patients still have limited benefits from ICI immuno-therapy because of primary immune evasion due to immunodeficiency. However, in existing human OSCC cell lines, cell models that can be used to study immunodeficiency have not been reported. The objective of this study was to establish a PD-L1 negative OSCC cell line, profile whether the presence of mutated genes is associated with immune deficiency, and explore its influence on the immune recognition of CD8⁺ T cells in vitro. Here, we established a novel tongue SCC cell line (WU-TSC-1), which escapes from immune recognition by antigen presentation defects. This cell line was from a female patient who lacked typical causative factors. The expression of PD-L1 was negative in the WU-TSC-1 primary tumor, transplanted tumor, cultured cells and lipopolysaccharide stimulation. Whole exome sequencing (WES) revealed that WU-TSC-1 harbored missense mutations, loss of copy number and structural variations in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I/II genes. The tumor mutation burden (TMB) score was high at 292.28. In addition, loss of heterozygosity at beta-2-microglobulin (B2M)-a component of all HLA class I complex allotypes-was detected. Compared with the commonly used OSCC cell lines, genetic alterations in HLA class I and B2M impeded the proteins' translation and inhibited the activation and killing effect of CD8⁺ T cells. In all, the WU-TSC-1 cell line is characterized by genetic variations and functional defects of the HLA class I complex, leading to escape from recognition by CD8⁺ T cells.

Approaches for Head and Neck Cancer Research - Current Status and the Way Forward

Head and neck cancers (HNCs) are seeing an increasing trend in their prevalence among both genders and are the seventh most common cancer type occurring at the global level. Studies addressing both the cancer cell physiology and individual differences in response to a specific treatment modality should be understood for arriving at effective treatment and management of the HNCs. In this article, we discuss the trends in HNC research and their various approaches starting from 2D in vitro models, which are the traditional experimental materials to recently established Cancer-Tissue Originated Spheroids (CTOS) distinctly contributing towards personalized or precision medicine.

EZB-ICR Cell Line: A New Established and Characterized Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Line From Tongue

Background:

Tongue cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of oral squamous cell carcinoma which needs more investigations. Herein, we aimed to establish and characterize a tongue cancer cell line.

Methods:

Tumor tissue was obtained from a 70-year-old woman with tongue cancer. The established cell line named as EZB-ICR and characterized for doubling time, expression of specific markers, HPV corporation and migration status using flow cytometry, immunofluorescence staining, multiplex PCR, and migration assay.

Results:

EZB-ICR was negative for expression of mesenchymal specific markers, cytokeratin19, pan-cytokeratin, vimentin and EPCAM, but was positive for S100 and Nestin. No appearance of human papilloma virus DNA was seen. The doubling time of EZB-ICR was 31 hours and migration assay confirmed its metastatic nature.

Conclusion:

To the best of our knowledge, EZB-ICR is the first tongue human cancer cell line established in Iran, and its features make it appropriate for cancer-based in vitro studies and contribute to more studies on tongue cancer.

Two novel cell culture models of buccal mucosal oral cancer from patients with no risk-habits of tobacco smoking or chewing

OBJECTIVE

Tobacco consumption is one of the major etiological factors for oral cancer, but it also develops in non-tobacco users, with unknown etiologies. Cellular models for tobacco associated oral cancer are available, however; reports of cellular models for studying non-tobacco associated oral cancer are limiting. We report here the establishment and characterization of two novel buccal mucosal cancer cell lines 'GBC02' and 'GBC035' derived from non-tobacco users.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Short tandem repeats (STR) profiling, Next-generation sequencing for whole-genome, exome and copy number alterations, immunofluorescence, flow-cytometry, proliferation, live-cell chemotaxis, 3D-spheroid formation, chemotherapy response, gene-expression microarray, gene-set enrichment analysis and xenograft development were performed.

RESULTS

Sources of the established cultures were matched to their donors through STR profiling. Genome sequence analysis revealed somatic mutations in TP53, CASP8, CDKN2A for GBC02 with deletions and amplifications encompassing CDKN2A, FAT1 and CCND1, PIK3CA, SOX2, EGFR, MYC genes, respectively. GBC035 harbored mutations in FAT1, NOTCH1, HRAS, CDKN2A, HLA-B, HLA-A genes. While GBC035 cells showed higher E-Cadherin positive cell-cell junctions and collective cell migration in chemotaxis; GBC02 cells were vimentin-positive and demonstrated individual cell migration. Further, exhibiting their relevance to preclinical research, GBC02 3D-spheroids demonstrated enrichment of development-related gene-signatures in microarray transcriptome analysis and were resistant to Cisplatin, but showed sensitivity to cancer stem cells-targeting drug, Salinomycin. Additionally, tumorigenic ability of GBC02 was demonstrated.

CONCLUSIONS

Altogether, we present here comprehensively characterized unique cell lines established from non-tobacco associated tumors, which may serve as models for preclinical investigations of oral cancers caused independent of tobacco usage.

FAM136A immunoreactivity is associated with nodal involvement and survival in lung adenocarcinoma in a Chinese case series

Lung cancer patients with lymph node metastasis usually had short overall survival and occurred distant metastases at the early stage. However, some of these people did have more prolonged survival. The underlying reason is still unclear. In this study, we found a novel molecule, family with sequence similarity 136, member A gene (FAM136A). First, we performed immunohistochemistry for FAM136A in 177 lung carcinoma tissues. Second, we carried out in vitro studies by using A549 and PC-9. We detected FAM136A immunoreactivity in 79 out of 177 (44.6%) lung carcinoma tissues, and the FAM136A status was significantly associated with tumor T stage, lymph node metastasis, and the Tumor-Node-Metastasis (TNM) staging system in these cases. Importantly, it was significantly associated with the overall survival of the patients with lymph node metastasis, especially FAM136A positive patients, who had worse outcomes. Subsequent in vitro experiments revealed that the proliferation activity and migration property decreased both A549 and PC-9 lung carcinoma cells transfected with siRNA-FAM136A, and apoptosis reduced. Meanwhile, the expression of CDK4 and CDK6 decreased. FAM136A status would be a potent, worse prognostic factor in lung cancer patients with lymph node metastasis. It would play a vital role in the proliferation, apoptosis, and migration properties of A549 and PC-9. In the future, We will focus on the uncovered signal mechanism between FAM136A and lung cancer.