Expression and biological significance of topoisomerase II α (TOP2A) in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Topoisomerase II α(TOP2A) is usually highly expressed in rapidly proliferating cells, and its expression is regulated by cell cycle. The relationship between TOP2A and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) needs further study. METHODS: TOP2A immunoreactivity was analyzed using immunohistochemical (IHC) staining analysis in specimens from 20 OSCC patients. Based on the high-throughput sequencing and gene microarray database, the expression of TOP2A mRNA in OSCC was calculated and its ability to identify OSCC tissues was evaluated by diagnostic analysis. CRISPR screen was used to select the genes necessary for OSCC cell growth, and the gene set was analyzed for function enrichment. Single-cell RNA sequencing analysis was conducted to evaluate the expression level of TOP2A mRNA in OSCC cells. RESULTS: Compared with normal oral tissues, the expression of TOP2A protein was up-regulated in OSCC tissues. A total of 1240 OSCC and 428 non-OSCC oral tissue samples were included based on high-throughput dataset retrieval, and it was confirmed that TOP2A mRNA was highly expressed in OSCC tissues [SMD = 1.51 (95% CI 0.94-2.07), sROC AUC = 0.96 (95% CI 0.94-0.98)]. As an essential gene for OSCC cell growth, single-cell RNA sequencing data also confirmed that TOP2A mRNA expression was up-regulated in OSCC cells. CONCLUSION: The up-regulation of TOP2A may play a pivotal role in OSCC.