Skip to main content
NCBI home page
British Journal of Cancer logoLink to British Journal of Cancer
. 2000 Jun 2;83(1):30–34. doi: 10.1054/bjoc.2000.1193

Aberrant expression of cyclin A in head and neck cancer

M Lotayef 1, G D Wilson 1, F M Daley 1, H K Awwad 2, T Shouman 2
PMCID: PMC2374545  PMID: 10883664

Abstract

Cyclin A expression was studied in a series of 65 squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck (HNSCC) and compared with known markers of proliferation, iododeoxyuridine (IdUrd) and Ki-67, to assess whether aberrant expression was prevalent. Patients had previously been administered IdUrd to study cell kinetics in relation to outcome of radiotherapy. The data showed that all three parameters were highly correlated although the absolute values were different. The median labelling indices (LI) for IdUrd, cyclin A and Ki-67 were 10.7, 17.1 and 30.8% respectively, reflecting the known pattern of differential cell cycle expression. However, there were a significant number of cases in which an unexpected relationship between cyclin A and either IdUrd or Ki-67 was present. Some of these were attributable to overexpression but others indicated underexpression. Although the greater variability and range of cyclin A expression, coupled with its more closely associated role in cell cycle regulation, might suggest that it may be a more informative marker for cell proliferation than Ki-67, the aberrant expression seen in over one third of cases would indicate that caution should be exercised in interpreting cyclin A as a surrogate marker of proliferation in HNSCC. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign

Keywords: cyclin A, proliferation, head and neck cancer

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (67.1 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Aaltomaa S., Eskelinen M., Lipponen P. Expression of cyclin A and D proteins in prostate cancer and their relation to clinopathological variables and patient survival. Prostate. 1999 Feb 15;38(3):175–182. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0045(19990215)38:3<175::aid-pros1>3.0.co;2-#. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Begg A. C., McNally N. J., Shrieve D. C., Kärcher H. A method to measure the duration of DNA synthesis and the potential doubling time from a single sample. Cytometry. 1985 Nov;6(6):620–626. doi: 10.1002/cyto.990060618. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bodey B., Williams R. T., Carbonaro-Hall D. A., Horvath A., Tolo V. T., Luck J. V., Jr, Taylor C. R., Hall F. L. Immunocytochemical detection of cyclin A and cyclin D in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues: novel, pertinent markers of cell proliferation. Mod Pathol. 1994 Oct;7(8):846–852. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Dolbeare F. Bromodeoxyuridine: a diagnostic tool in biology and medicine, Part II: Oncology, chemotherapy and carcinogenesis. Histochem J. 1995 Dec;27(12):923–964. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Dutta A., Chandra R., Leiter L. M., Lester S. Cyclins as markers of tumor proliferation: immunocytochemical studies in breast cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995 Jun 6;92(12):5386–5390. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.12.5386. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Furihata M., Ishikawa T., Inoue A., Yoshikawa C., Sonobe H., Ohtsuki Y., Araki K., Ogoshi S. Determination of the prognostic significance of unscheduled cyclin A overexpression in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Clin Cancer Res. 1996 Oct;2(10):1781–1785. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Furihata M., Ohtsuki Y., Sonobe H., Shuin T., Yamamoto A., Terao N., Kuwahara M. Cyclin A overexpression in carcinoma of the renal pelvis and ureter including dysplasia: immunohistochemical findings in relation to prognosis. Clin Cancer Res. 1997 Aug;3(8):1399–1404. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Hall M., Peters G. Genetic alterations of cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinases, and Cdk inhibitors in human cancer. Adv Cancer Res. 1996;68:67–108. doi: 10.1016/s0065-230x(08)60352-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Handa K., Yamakawa M., Takeda H., Kimura S., Takahashi T. Expression of cell cycle markers in colorectal carcinoma: superiority of cyclin A as an indicator of poor prognosis. Int J Cancer. 1999 Jun 21;84(3):225–233. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0215(19990621)84:3<225::aid-ijc5>3.0.co;2-a. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Kallakury B. V., Sheehan C. E., Rhee S. J., Fisher H. A., Kaufman R. P., Jr, Rifkin M. D., Ross J. S. The prognostic significance of proliferation-associated nucleolar protein p120 expression in prostate adenocarcinoma: a comparison with cyclins A and B1, Ki-67, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, and p34cdc2. Cancer. 1999 Apr 1;85(7):1569–1576. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19990401)85:7<1569::aid-cncr19>3.0.co;2-m. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Pardee A. B. G1 events and regulation of cell proliferation. Science. 1989 Nov 3;246(4930):603–608. doi: 10.1126/science.2683075. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Pines J. Cyclins, CDKs and cancer. Semin Cancer Biol. 1995 Apr;6(2):63–72. doi: 10.1006/scbi.1995.0009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Sherr C. J. Cancer cell cycles. Science. 1996 Dec 6;274(5293):1672–1677. doi: 10.1126/science.274.5293.1672. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Wang J., Chenivesse X., Henglein B., Bréchot C. Hepatitis B virus integration in a cyclin A gene in a hepatocellular carcinoma. Nature. 1990 Feb 8;343(6258):555–557. doi: 10.1038/343555a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Wilson G. D. Tpot and head and neck cancer: where are we now? Anticancer Res. 1998 Nov-Dec;18(6B):4801–4805. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Journal of Cancer are provided here courtesy of Cancer Research UK

RESOURCES