Fig 1.
Tissue samples were collected from patients with tonsil squamous cell cancer (TSCC) at three time points: at baseline, before RT (Day0), after 7 days of RT (Day7), and 20 days after the last RT. In addition, tissue samples were collected from healthy subjects (CON). All tissue collections consisted of one blood sample and one biopsy of oral buccal mucosa. Tissue samples were successively stored in our biobank. Once all the material was collected, gene expression analysis was performed collectively at the same laboratory.
Table 1.
Patient characteristics and demographics upon enrollment in the study.
Table 2.
Patient clinical data during radiation treatment and at follow-up.
Table 3.
Genes altered in mucosal tissue from patients with tonsil squamous cell carcinoma receiving radiation therapy.
Table 4.
Genes altered in mononuclear cells of the blood from patients with tonsil squamous cell carcinoma receiving radiation therapy.
Fig 2.
Immunohistochemical analysis of mucosal tissue expression of scinderin.
Oral buccal mucosa section (×15 magnification) stained with an SCIN antibody. (a) High scinderin expression is evident in mucosa from a control individual (patient CON05). (b) Low scinderin expression is evident in mucosa from a patient with tonsil squamous cell cancer (patient TSCC07); the biopsy was acquired Day20. SCIN encodes a regulatory protein involved in exocytosis and we expected to se downregulation in salivary gland tissue, however epithelial cells were heavily stained in the healthy control group.
Fig 3.
Expression of LY6G6C in mucosa.
Dot plot shows expression of LY6G6C, at baseline (Day 0), after 7 days of RT (Day 7), and 20 days after the last RT session (Day 20), among patients that developed ulcerative mucositis (red) or mild/no mucositis (green), and in controls (blue). Patients with mild/ no mucositis exhibited an upregulation of LY6G6C. LY6G6C encodes a surface immunoregulatory protein expressed on mucosal dendritic cells.
Fig 4.
Expression of RNU6-620P and RNU6-622P in blood cells.
Dot plot shows expression of RNU6-620P (FC-x11.8; P = 5.80e-80) and RNU6-622P (FCx7.3 P = 8.62e-05) at baseline (Day 0), after 7 days of RT (Day 7), and 20 days after the last RT session (Day 20), among patients that developed ulcerative mucositis (red) or mild/no mucositis (green). Expression in normal controls is indicated with blue circles. These genes encode small nuclear RNAs, which are non-protein coding genes. Patients with TSCC expressed a significant different level of both genes compared to healthy controls.
Fig 5.
Small nuclear RNA (snRNA) clustered according to P value.
The expression of snRNA regardless of fold change was clustered according to P value, showing a distinct division between patients with TSCC and healthy controls.