Prognostic and Predictive Value of Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transitionassociated Markers in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most frequent malignancy of the oral cavity, highly invasive with unfavourable prognosis and unimproved 5-year survival rate for at least two decades. Comprehensive analysis of the proteome in OSCC patients (tissue tumor, blood and saliva) was extensively performed in the last years in order to identify reliable biomarkers for early detection, prognosis or treatment efficacy. We discuss herein the up-dated recent data regarding neoplastic / stromal interactions related biomarkers such as cadherins, catenins, matrix metalloproteinases, snai1, snai2, desmoglein 3, ezrin, zyxin, ILK, EMMPRIN, bone sialoprotein, dentin sialophosphoprotein, osteopontin, fascin, podoplanin, calreticulin. These molecules are involved either in cell-cell adhesion, cell-extracellular matrix interactions or regulation of matrix metalloproteinases that are expressed in OSCC, most of them in correlation with tumor aggressivity. The pattern of the expression of most of these biomolecules in correlation with prognosis and/or histopathologic parameters with previously proven prognostic significance (such as tumor stage or presence of lymph node metastases) recommend them as possible biomarkers; however, considering the multitude of the studies involving several of this markers and the inhomogeneous results, further investigations are required in order to validate them for daily practice use.