Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, D.J. College of Dental Sciences & Research, Modinagar.
Bcl-2 derives its name from B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) as it is the second member of a range of proteins described as reciprocal gene translocation in chromosomes 14 and 18 in follicular lymphomas. Bcl-2 plays an important role in the regulation of apoptosis. Inhibition of apoptosis or programmed cell death is critical in the development of neoplasm. Bcl-2 is related to cancer development in the initial stages of carcinogenesis up to the appearance of metastasis. The over-expression of Bcl-2 in tumor cells contributes to the expansion of the damaged cell clone by preventing cell turnover due to programmed cell death, leading to cellular immortalization. By promoting cell survival Bcl-2 facilitates the permanent acquisition of mutations and malignant transformation.
To study the expression of Bcl-2 protein in various grades of squamous cell carcinoma.
Formalin fixed, paraffin embedded sections from 18 samples of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) were chosen to obtain 6 samples each of well, moderate and poorly differentiated samples. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to evaluate the Bcl-2 expression. In each case, 100 cells were counted randomly from 5 different fields using 40X magnification.
There was reduction from well to moderate to poorly differentiated OSCC and the reduction was found to be statistically significant.
Bcl-2, Squamous Cell Carcinoma
