The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between Golgi phosphoprotein 2 (GOLPH2) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and explore the clinical significance of GOLPH2 in OSCC.
Tissue microarrays from human OSCC samples were stained for GOLPH2 expression and clinicopathologic features. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare the survival of patients with high GOLPH2 expression and patients with low GOLPH2 expression.
We found GOLPH2 is highly expressed in OSCC tissue, and the GOLPH2 expression in metastatic lymph nodes is higher than in tumor tissue. Our data indicate that patients with higher GOLPH2 expression have poor overall survival compared with those with lower GOLPH2 expression. This study demonstrated that GOLPH2 was associated with CD44, SOX2, Slug, B7-H3, B7-H4, TIM3, and VISTA.
These findings suggest GOLPH2 is a potential marker for estimating the patient's prognosis and may be a target for molecular-targeted therapy against OSCC.