Genetic and epigenetic characterization of laryngeal carcinoma

• Autor(a) principal: Marques, Vanessa Alexandra Freire
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/15016
• topic: Biomedicina; Cancro da laringe - Alterações genéticas; Patologia celular

Laryngeal carcinomas belong to a bigger family of tumours known as Head and Neck Cancer (HNC). HNC is the sixth most malignant type of cancer in the world and it can arise from several anatomical sites. Among them, the larynx is the second most common affect organ. The incidence of laryngeal carcinoma is 1,9% worldwide and it presents a high mortality rate (1,6%). Despite technological advances in diagnosis and treatment fields, the 5 year-survival rate did not improved significantly. The low survival rates are mainly explained by a late diagnosis, tumour aggressiveness and the fact that laryngeal carcinoma metastasize easily. Taking this into consideration, it is essential to identify biomarkers with significant diagnostic and prognostic value in order to anticipate the detection of laryngeal carcinoma in an early stage. This study arises mainly for characterize the genetic and epigenetic profile of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). Eight LSCC samples and seven non-tumour samples contralateral to the primary tumour were collected upon resection surgery and characterized by MLPA, MS-MLPA and array CGH. The results showed that gain of genetic material was mainly present in chromosomes 3q, 8q, 11q, 14q13.1, Xp22.31 and Xq21.1 while genetic loss occurred mainly in chromosomes 3p, 9p23.1 and Y. Gain of MYC and TNFRSF1A was the most common event among the tumour samples included in this study. Regarding the methylation profile, the genes CDKN2A, CHFR, RARβ e RASSF1 were the only ones which were methylated in this samples. In conclusion, this study allowed to identify genetic alterations associated with LSCC that have already been reported in scientific papers as well as alterations that have been associated with tumour development and progression. In addition, a few genetic alterations which have never been reported as being associated with human cancer before were identified. Nevertheless, new studies must be carried out, with a higher number of samples. Ultimately, the main goal would be to identify genetic alterations significantly associated with LSCC progression and establish a correlation with clinicopathological data.