Protein expression of HPV16 and its early gene E6, E7 in human laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and its significance / 第二军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the protein expression of HPV16 and its early gene E6, E7 in human laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma tissues, and to analyze their relationship with the clinical stage and pathological classification of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Methods: The expression of HPV16, HPV16 E6, and HPV16 E7 protein was detected in 147 specimens of different laryngeal lesions immunohistochemically. The specimens included 82 laryngeal carcinoma, 39 non-carcinoma tissues (including 27 specimens of vocal cord polyp and 12 specimens of normal laryngeal tissues taken from more than 1.0 cm adjacent to the carcinoma), and 26 precancerous lesions (leukoplakia) of the larynx. The relationship between the protein expression with the clinical stage and histopathological classification of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma was analyzed. Results: The positive rates of HPV16, HPV16 E6, and HPV16 E7 protein in precancerous tissues (30.77%, 26. 92%, and 26. 92%, respectively) were significantly lower than those in laryngeal carcinoma lesions (45. 12%, 39. 02%, and 42. 68%, respectively; P<0. 05 or 0. 01), but were significantly higher than those in non-carcinoma tissues (23. 08%, 5. 13%, and 2.56%, respectively; P<0.05 or 0.01). In non-carcinoma tissues, the positive rate of HPV16 protein was significantly higher than that of E6 or E7 (P<0.05 or 0.01), while there was no difference between their positive rates in laryngeal carcinoma or precancerous lesions. We found that human laryngeal carcinoma tissues with different clinical stages and different pathological classifications also had different positive rate of HPV16 protein (P<0.05), but they had a similar positive rate of HPV16 E6 and E7. Conclusion: The expression of HPV16 E6, E7 proteins after the HPV16 infection might be one of the reasons for development of human laryngeal carcinoma. Inhibition of HPV16E7 expression by immunologic strategy may have a potential for treatment of laryngeal carcinoma.