ROLE OF pROtEin kinasEs and kiRstEn Ras pathways in ORaL sQUaMOUs CELL CaRCinOMa and pOORLy diFFEREntiatEd ORaL sQUaMOUs CELL CaRCinOMa in pUnJaB (pakistan) pOpULatiOn

Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) develops by accumulation of multiple genetic alterations, influenced by the patient’s genetic predisposition as well as by environmental influences, that includes pan, chaalyia, tobacco, alcohol, chronic inflammation, and viral infection. This study was carried out to understand the molecular alterations which contribute to the development of OSCC in Pakistani population. The study was conducted on a sample of 53 patients collected from different hospitals of Lahore. Results of this study indicate that Akt levels shows higher expression with increase in grades. The value of Akt1 in well differentiated grade 1 tissue is of the order of 0.09+0.00, Akt2 is 0.04+0.00 and Akt3 is 0.02+0.00 while in poorly differentiated tissues the values of Akt 1, Akt and Akt3 are 0.22+0.09, 0.13+0.03 and 0.06+0.01 respectively. kRas is an oncogene which is highly elevated in both grades (well differentiated: 0.09+0.02 and poorly differentiated: 0.13+0.02) in all samples of OSCC. In conclusion, our data demonstrated that Akt isoforms and kRas significantly control the cancer transition pathway. It is seen that Akt 1expression rises from 2.5fold in well differentiated tissues to 3.5-fold in poorly differentiated tissues. The Akt-2 on the other hand shows only 0.5-fold increases from normal tissue in grade 1 tissues, but rises to 4-fold in grade-3 tissue. On the other hand there was no change in Akt-3 as compared to normal in grade I tissues yet, 3-fold increase has been recorded in grade III tissue. The oncogene K-RaS shows consistent increase of the order of 2.5-fold in grade I and 3-fold in grade III.This information combined with histopathological reports can further improve our understanding of the prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma.