Conclusion
These differences in expression of Cav-1 between NFs and CAFs of patients with OSCC confirm that the protein might play a role in tumor progression and is of interest for further analyses. Clinical relevance: Our findings support a possible role of the two isoforms of Cav-1 in the malignant transformation of OSCC.
Methods
Fibroblasts from normal mucosa and CAFs were isolated and propagated in vitro. Gene expression of the different Cav-1 isoforms was assessed via quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and supplemented by protein expression analysis.
Results
We could show that the Cav-1β isoform is more highly expressed in NFs and CAFs compared to Cav-1α. Furthermore, the different Cav-1 isoforms tended to be differently expressed in different tumor stages. However, this trend could not be seen consistently, which is in line with the ambiguous role of Cav-1 in tumor progression described in literature. Western blotting furthermore revealed that NFs and CAFs might differ in the oligomerization profile of the Cav-1 protein.