Abstract: PURPOSE: To investigate the expression of tumor necrosis factor α-induced protein 6 (TNFAIP6 ) in oral verrucous carcinoma(OVC）and oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC), and its relationship with clinicopathology. METHODS: RNA-seq data of OSCC was downloaded from the TCGA database. Paired t test was used to compare the expression of TNFAIP6 from OSCC and normal oral mucosa. Receiver operating characteristic curve(ROC) and Kaplan-Meier curve were drawn to evaluate its diagnostic and prognostic value, respectively. Fifteen cases of normal oral mucosa （NM）, 22 cases of OVC and 24 cases of OSCC paraffin specimens were used for TNFAIP6 detection by immunohistochemistry; furthermore, the relationships between the positive expression rate and clinical factors was analyzed. Five pairs of OSCC cancer and adjacent tissues, 5 pairs of OVC cancer and adjacent tissues were verified by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. The measurement data was analyzed using Graph Pad Prism 7.0 software, and paired t test was used for comparison between groups with SPSS 21.0 software package. RESULTS: In the TCGA database, the expression of TNFAIP6 was significantly up-regulated in OSCC and had certain diagnostic value. The expression of TNFAIP6 in OSCC paraffin specimens was significantly up-regulated, which was related to alcohol consumption, cervical lymph node metastasis and clinical stage. The expression of TNFAIP6 in OVC paraffin specimens was significantly up-regulated, which was related to the size of the primary tumor. TNFAIP6 was significantly up-regulated in transcription and protein expression in OSCC tumor tissues. All the above results were statistically significant(P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: TNFAIP6 is highly expressed in OSCC tissues and associated with diagnosis and prognosis, which can be used as a molecular marker for OSCC.

Key words: Oral verrucous carcinoma, Oral squamous cell carcinoma, Tumor necrosis factor α-induced protein 6;, Carcinogenesis