Differential Expression of EZH2 and H3K27me3 in Oral Verrucous Carcinoma and Oral Verrucous Hyperplasia

Abstract

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2), a component of the polycomb repressive complex 2 that catalyzes trimethylation of H3K27 (H3K27me3), has been shown to promote tumor development and progression. Expression of EZH2 is associated with cell cycle regulation and cell proliferation in various neoplasms. Oral verrucous hyperplasia (OVH) and Oral verrucous carcinoma (OVC) are rare entities and share several clinical and histopathologic features. Problems distinguishing these lesions are added by a lack of adjacent normal tissue of the biopsy samples and poorly oriented tissue sections. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of EZH2 and H3K27me3 in OVH and OVC and comparing the expression with normal oral mucosa and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Seventy-eight samples, including 25 cases of OVC, 8 cases of OVH, 35 cases of OSCC and 10 cases of normal oral mucosa, were retrieved and submitted for immunohistochemical staining. The results demonstrated that the mean labeling indices (LIs) of EZH2 and H3K27me3 expression were highest in OSCC, followed by the OVC, OVH, and normal mucosa. Statistical differences in EZH2 LI were observed among these lesions whereas H3K27me3 LI was significantly different among OSCC, OVH and normal mucosa. EZH2 LI was found to have a sensitivity of 72.00% and specificity of 87.50% in distinguishing OVH from OVC, and a sensitivity of 57.14% and specificity of 84.00% in distinguishing OVC from OSCC. A positive correlation between EZH2 and H3K27me3 expression was significantly found in OVC but not in OVH and OSCC. These findings highlight the involvement of epigenetic regulation by EZH2-mediated H3K27me3 in the pathogenesis of OVH and OVC, and EZH2 expression indicates disease progression of these verrucous lesions. Diagnostic test analysis further suggests that EZH2 may be used as an additional test for differentiating OVH from OVC in questionable cases.