High expression of EZH2 is associated with tumor proliferation and prognosis in human oral squamous cell carcinomas

Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is a member of the polycomb group of genes and is important in cell cycle regulation. Overexpression of EZH2 protein has been associated with biological malignancy of prostate cancer and several other cancers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the expression of EZH2 protein in human oral normal mucosa, dysplasia and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) with clinicopathological profiles. EZH2 expression was assessed by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry in 3 OSCC cell lines, 10 normal mucosae, 50 dysplasias and 102 OSCCs. The labeling indices (LIs) of EZH2, Ki-67, P53, and the apoptotic index (AI) were evaluated by immunohistochemistry and the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated dUTP-digoxigenin nick-end labeling (TUNEL) method. Western blot analysis detected EZH2 protein as a single band at 91kDa in the 3 OSCC cell lines, but it was almost absent in non-tumoral oral mucosae. The LI of EZH2 was highest in the OSCCs, followed by the dysplasias (p<0.05) and normal mucosae (p<0.05) with significant difference. The LI of EZH2 correlated with the clinical stage, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and LIs of Ki-67 and P53, but not with the AI in OSCCs, and inversely correlated with the histological differentiation of OSCCs. The survival rate calculated by the Kaplan–Meier method revealed that OSCC patients with higher EZH2 expression showed poorer prognosis than those with a lower EZH2 expression (p<0.01). These results suggest that overexpression of EZH2 is correlated with malignant potential and poor prognosis in OSCCs. EZH2 might serve as a novel biomarker for predicting prognosis in patients with OSCCs.