Expression of caveolin-1 and its correlation with cisplatin sensitivity in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Purpose: Cisplatin (CDDP) is widely used for chemotherapy of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). However, the mechanism of resistance to CDDP is unclear. Recently, caveolin-1 was identified as being associated with both metastasis and multidrug resistance. In the present study, we showed that caveolin-1 expression is significantly related to chemosensitivity in OSCC. Methods: We established a CDDP-resistant cell line, H-1R, from the parental OSCC cell line, H-1. Caveolin-1 expression was determined by reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in both cell lines. We analyzed expression of caveolin-1 in 30 OSCC biopsy specimens and investigated the relationship between expression of caveolin-1 and patients‘ clinicopathological parameters and chemotherapeutic responses. Results: The 3-(3,4-dimethyl-thiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay indicated that H-1R has a ten-times greater resistance to CDDP than H-1 has. The level of caveolin-1 expression in H-1R was significantly decreased in comparison with that in H-1 by real-time RT-PCR analysis. Positive caveolin-1 immunostaining correlated positively with a complete response (16/20, 80.0%). However, negative immunostaining was found in 6/7 (85.7%) cases with no response. Positive immunohistochemical staining of caveolin-1 correlated positively with chemosensitivity to CDDP-based combination chemotherapy (P=0.02). Conclusions: These results suggest that overexpression of the caveolin-1 gene may provide novel diagnostic markers associated with CDDP sensitivity in OSCC.