Expression Level of Protein Kinase D in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma with Diverse Differentiation

  Objective  This study aimed to investigate the expression level of protein kinase D (PKD) in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and its relationship with differentiation of OSCC.

  Methods  Sample was collected from 10 healthy control subjects and 40 OSCC confirmed by histopathological diagnosis, and the immunohistochemical staining was adopted to detect the expression of PKDs in OSCC tissues. The proportion of stained cell and staining intensity were evaluated to get a score, which used to analyze the difference among PKD1, PKD2 and PKD3 in various differentiation OSCC tissues. The correlations between the staining score of PKDs and differentiation of OSCC were further analyzed.

  Results  PKD1 and PKD3 were high expression in OSCC tissues. There were statistical significance among the staining score of PKD1, PKD2 and PKD3 in various differentiation OSCC tissues (P<0.001). In addition, there was a significantly negative correlation between the staining score of PKD1 and PKD2 with the differentiation of OSCC (r=−0.574, −0.341, P<0.001).

  Conclusion  In OSCC tissues with different degree of differentiation, there might be some differences among PKDs which play a major role. The expression of PKD1 and PKD2 was correlated with the differentiation of OSCC, the poor differentiation of OSCC, the higher expression of PKD1 and PKD2.