Comprehensive Glycoprofiling of Oral Tumors Associates N-Glycosylation With Lymph Node Metastasis and Patient Survival.

While altered protein glycosylation is regarded a trait of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the heterogeneous and dynamic glycoproteome of tumor tissues from OSCC patients remain unmapped. To this end, we here employ an integrated multi-omics approach comprising unbiased and quantitative glycomics and glycoproteomics applied to a cohort of resected primary tumor tissues from OSCC patients with (n = 19) and without (n = 12) lymph node metastasis. While all tumor tissues displayed relatively uniform N-glycome profiles suggesting overall stable global N-glycosylation during disease progression, altered expression of six sialylated N-glycans was found to correlate with lymph node metastasis. Notably, glycoproteomics and advanced statistical analyses uncovered altered site-specific N-glycosylation revealing previously unknown associations with several clinicopathological features. Importantly, the glycomics and glycoproteomics data unveiled that comparatively high abundance of two core-fucosylated and sialylated N-glycans (Glycan 40a and Glycan 46a) and one N-glycopeptide from fibronectin were associated with low patient survival, while a relatively low abundance of N-glycopeptides from both afamin and CD59 were also associated with poor survival. This study provides insight into the complex OSCC tissue N-glycoproteome, thereby forming an important resource to further explore the underpinning disease mechanisms and uncover new prognostic glycomarkers for OSCC.

Primary intestinal-type adenocarcinoma: Report of a rare case involving a young patient.

The aim of this report was to describe a rare example of sporadic intestinal-type adenocarcinoma of the major salivary glands and oral cavity. A 23-year-old female patient presented an asymptomatic, progressive-growing mass involving the floor of mouth and the left submandibular gland. Fine-needle aspiration cytology, imaging exams, and surgical specimen findings were consisted with the diagnosis of primary intestinal-type adenocarcinoma, despite its similar immunohistochemical results with colorectal adenocarcinoma. Adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy were performed, but the patient developed multiple metastatic lesions after one year of initial the intervention and deceased following 13 months of follow-up, despite several therapeutic efforts. We verified that sporadic cases of primary intestinal-type adenocarcinoma still lack information regarding etiology and tumorigenesis, especially in young and females. A complete diagnostic workflow is indispensable to rule out the presence of primary colorectal adenocarcinoma.

Phosphorylated Akt1 expression is associated with poor prognosis in cutaneous, oral and sinonasal melanomas.

Melanomas are highly aggressive tumours derived from melanocytes, which occur most commonly in the skin. Occasionally, these tumours may appear in oral and sinonasal mucous membranes. In this study, we performed a comparative analysis of the Phosphorylated Akt1 (p-Akt1) expression in 144 patients affected by cutaneous (CM), 34 oral cavity (OM), and 31 sinonasal melanomas (SNM). Similar to the metastatic cutaneous melanomas, p-Akt1 was overexpressed in 17/34 of the oral cavity and 20/31 of the sinonasal melanomas. In addition, the p-Akt1-nuclear expression was associated with poorer cancer-specific survival in cutaneous (P < .0001), oral (P < .0001), and sinonasal (P = .001) melanomas. Multivariate analysis showed p-Akt1 to be an independent prognostic marker in oral (P = .041) and sinonasal (P < .0001) melanomas patients. In conclusion, p-Akt1 overexpression is an independent prognostic marker in mucosal melanomas and is significantly up-regulated in sinonasal melanomas. As both mucosal and metastatic cutaneous melanomas showed high frequency of p-Akt1 expression, these findings suggest that mucosal melanomas have a biological behaviour, similar to the aggressive cutaneous melanomas.