Asian Science Seminar ASS-3

Mutation Analysis of the EGFR Pathway in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Cancer

Mahmoud AL Sheikh Ali^{1, 2}, Mehmet Gunduz², Hitoshi Nagatsuka², Beyhan Cengiz^{2, 3}, Esra Gunduz²,

Ryo Tamamura² and Noriyuki Nagai²

¹College of Dentistry, Jordan University, Jordan

²Department of Oral Pathology and Medicine, Graduate school of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Japan

³Gaziantep Medical School, Turkey

The EGFR-RAS-RAF-MAPK signaling cascade is an important pathway in cancer development and recent reports show that the EGFR and its downstream signaling molecules are mutated in a number of cancers. ErbB2 is another member of the EGFR family with a strong kinase activity and it’s the preferred heterodimerization partner for EGFR. Ras activates raf which is also an important oncogene in this pathway. In order to clarify the mutation status of this pathway and in order to find potential targets for molecular therapy, we used PCR and direct sequencing to detect the mutation status of the hot spot regions of EGFR (exon 19,20,21) and Kras (codons 12,13,61).

Out of the 79 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma samples used in this study we couldn’t find any mutation in the EGFR nor in the Kras gene. Our data shows that mutations of the TK domain of EGFR and the Kras gene are not common in head and neck Squamous cell carcinoma. Currently, we are investigating the mutation status of the TK domain of erbB2 (exons 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) and exons 11 and 15 of Braf gene using single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and direct sequencing.