S100A8 is identified as a biomarker of HPV18-infected oral squamous cell carcinomas by suppression subtraction hybridization, clinical proteomics analysis, and immunohistochemistry staining.

The purpose of this work is to differentiate between the Human papillomaviruses 18 positive (HPV18+) and negative (HPV18-) oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) in oral cancer patients with cancer-associated oral habits (betel quid chewing, cigarette smoking, and alcohol drinking). Both gene and protein expression profiles of HPV18+ and HPV18- OSCC were compared: we then further explored the biological effect of HPV in oral cancer. Suppression subtraction hybridization (SSH), clinical proteomics analysis, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining were carried out in the HPV18+ and HPV18- OSCC groups. HPV typing detection revealed that 11 OSCC tissues from 82 patients were positive for HPV18. The SSH experiment showed that 4 cancer-associated genes were highly transcribed within 11 cDNA libraries of HPV18+ OSCC, including poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase I (PARP1), replication protein A2 (RPA2), S100A8, and S100A2. Clinical proteomics analysis indicated that there was over 10-fold overexpression of Stratifin, F-actin capping protein alpha-1 subunit (CapZ alpha-1), Apolipoprotein A-1 (ApoA-1), Heat-shock protein 27 (HSP27), Arginase-1, p16INK4A, and S100 calcium-binding protein A8 (S100A8) in HPV18+ OSCC. Interestingly, the results from SSH and protemics analysis showed that S100A8 was overexpressed in HPV18+ OSCC. Moreover, IHC staining demonstrated that S100A8 was up-regulated in HPV18+ OSCC tissues. Our results suggest that S100A8 plays an important role in oral carcinogenesis following HPV18 infection; therefore, S100A8 may be a powerful biomarker of HPV18 as well as a potential therapeutic target for HPV18+ OSCC patients. The study is the first to identify S100A8 as a biomarker in HPV-associated cancer. Furthermore, this is also the first study to discover a biomarker by combining SSH, clinical proteomics, and IHC stain analysis in oral cancer-associated research.