Reduced expression of p27Kip1 correlates with an early stage of cancer invasion in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Down-regulation of p27Kip1 has been reported to correlate with poor survival of various carcinoma patients including oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs). It is still unclear, however, at what stage of oral carcinogenesis the down-regulation of this protein occurs. In this study, therefore, we evaluated immunoexpression of p27Kip1 protein in 17 cases of oral epithelial dysplasia and succeeding invasive OSCC in the same patient. We reported here that 88% cases showed high p27Kip1 expression in dysplastic lesions, whereas 82% cases of succeeding invasive OSCC exhibited reduced expression. The reduction of p27Kip1 expression was also observed in 16 of 19 (84%) early invasive lesions and well correlated with Ki-67 expression which is good indicator of cell proliferation. We also investigated immunoexpression of p53 protein of which abnormality has been known to occur during the early stage of OSCC development. Overexpression of p53 protein was demonstrated in 29% of dysplastic lesions, 42% of early invasive and 71% of invasive OSCCs. These findings suggest that abnormalities of both p53 and p27Kip1 are involved in the carcinogenesis of OSCC, but they seem to play their role at different stages of oral cancer development, respectively. Reduced expression of p27Kip1 may concern the cancer invasion directly or indirectly as well as abnormal proliferation.