A Study of C-MYC, SOX10 and BCL-2 Proteins Expression in Head and Neck Mucosal Melanomas

Abstract

Background: Head and Neck Mucosal Melanoma (HNMM) is rare, accounting 1% of all melanomas in USA, and 6% in Japan. Melanoma’s development is a complex process involving activation of proto-oncogenes and loss of tumor suppressors. BCL-2 oncogene encodes a family of anti-apoptotic proteins and it is overexpressed in melanomas. On the other hand, proto-oncogene C-MYC is a transcriptional factor and plays crucial role both in driving cell proliferation and promoting apoptosis, its overexpression has been associated to melanoma progression. Moreover, oncogene SOX10 cooperates with other transcription factors to direct the development and differentiation of melanocytes. These three nuclear markers are associated to melanoma’s metastatic risk.Methods: We studied of BCL-2; C-MYC and SOX10 proteins in 19 Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded cases of HNMM from Yale School of Medicine and 10 cases from University of São Paulo by Alkalin Phosphatase immunohistochemistry technique.Results: We considered as positive expression when over 25% of tumor cells were immunostained. We observed 27/29 were positive to BCL-2 and 28/29 cases showed SOX10 expression (both markers showing immunostaining in over 75% of tumor cells). However, we noticed variable expression for C-MYC in 15/29 of HNMM cases.Conclusions: According to ours results, we suggest that BCL-2 and SOX10, should be good adjuctive biomarkers for HNMM, however lower expression of C-MYC has not shown to play main role in the HNMM development, thus further molecular biology studies should corroborate this present study.