PD-L1: A Window for Oral Cancer Therapeutics

Poonam G, Vaibhav G, Neena C, Deepak G, Usha A and Garima J

National Institute of Pathology – ICMR, Delhi, India
Department of ENT, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi, India
These authors contributed equally to this work and designated as First authors

^*Correspondance to: Garima Jain 

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Abstract:

Introduction: Presence of Programmed cell Death Ligand 1 (PD-L1) may be genetic or inducible leading to its expression on cancer cells or non-cancer cells in response to T-cell infiltration. Blockade of PD-L1 boosts the immune reaction in a range of tumors and hence serves as an effective anti-cancer management. Little is known about PD-L1 genetic alterations in oral cancer. Hence the study aimed to assess PD-L1 DNA status, mRNA status and protein expression in oral lesion subjects. Methodology: Analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 159 subjects. Clinicopathological parameters were recorded before biopsy from the representative site of oral lesion among the study groups. Chromogenic-in-situ hybridization, RNA-in-situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry techniques were employed for PD-L1 DNA status, mRNA status and protein expression in oral lesion subjects, correspondingly. Their co-relation and clinic-pathological significance was further studied. Results: Subjects with OSCC showed 93% of total PD-L1 DNA amplifications, while OPMD patients depicted only 6%. On exploring the mRNA expression among OSCC patients, higher and stronger signals per nucleus were observed. And 62.2% of OSCC and 37.7% of OPMD patients showed a higher protein expression. Conclusion: Higher PD-L1 gene amplification in oral cancer patients is not a rare event, and may act as a biomarker to recognize high-risk progressing lesions. Higher PD-L1 mRNA expression is chiefly related to the higher protein expression, and appears to be of significant prognostic relevance and can act as deciding factor among subjects for immunotherapy in oral malignant lesions.

Keywords:

PD-L1; CISH; RNA-ISH; Oral cancer; IHC; OPMD

Cite the Article:

Poonam G, Vaibhav G, Neena C, Deepak G, Usha A, Garima J. PD-L1: A Window for Oral Cancer Therapeutics. Clin Oncol. 2024;9:2095..