UCLA

The overall goal of this project is to gain insight into the role of the enhanced expression of SOX11, a member of the SOX transcription factor family, and SDCCAG8, a tumor antigen, in oral/head and neck cancer. We hypothesize that over-expression of SOX11, an embryonic development related gene, leads to an upregulation of SDCCAG8, promoting a malignant phenotype in oral/head and neck cancer. To test this hypothesis, we have first demonstrated that knockdown of SOX11 expression inhibits the proliferation, migration and invasion of oral/head and neck cancer cells. Next, we have confirmed that SOX11 binds to the promoter of SDCCAG8 by using ChIP and luciferase assays and proven that up-regulation (or down-regulation) of SOX11 induces (or inhibits) the expression of SDCCAG8 in oral/head and neck cancer cells. To further investigate the clinical significance of SDCCAG8 over-expression in oral/head and neck cancer, we have utilized the deep sequencing data from the TCGA database and performed a correlation analysis of SDCCAG8 gene expression with clinicopathological parameters of oral/head and neck cancer patients. The results show that high expression of SDCCAG8 is significantly associated with overall survival, tumor size and stage of the cancer patients. Taken together, our findings indicate that SDCCAG8 is a prognostic biomarker in oral/head and neck cancer and SOX11 may promote the progression of oral/head and neck cancer via the regulation of SDCCAG8.