Lentiviral short hairpin RNA screen of human kinases and phosphatases to identify potential biomarkers in oral squamous cancer cells.

Oral carcinoma is a serious public health problem and the leading cause of head and neck cancer mortality worldwide. Moreover, oral cancer patients often present symptoms at a late stage and show a high recurrence rate after treatment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify novel biomarkers for early diagnosis or clinical oral cancer therapy. In this study, we employed a subset of lentiviral short hairpin RNAs targeted against various kinases and phosphatases, designed by The RNAi Consortium, to screen systemically and in a high-throughput manner for potential growth regulators of oral cancer cells. The screen revealed a total of 50 candidate genes, for which more than 90% of growth inhibition in human oral squamous cancer HSC-3 cells was obtained. Furthermore, bioinformatic analysis of these candidate genes identified transforming growth factor-β receptor type II- and fms-related tyrosine kinase 3-related molecular pathways that are involved in NF-κB-mediated growth of HSC-3 cells. These candidate genes may be potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of oral cancer. In addition, these candidate genes represent potential targets for anticancer drug design helping to develop a personalized treatment to combat oral cancer.