Abstract 5578: SOCS2 (suppressor of cytokine signaling protein 2) is a prognostic indicator of progression-free survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients.
Authors: Nicholas Courtney , Nunez Maria I. , Harun Nusrat , Lee J. Jack , Myers Jeffrey , Wistuba Ignacio I. , Sen Banibrata , El-Naggar Adel K. , Lai Stephen Y. , Johnson Faye M. , William William N. 
Published: August 2014

HNSCC is a common, deadly, and disfiguring disease. While combinations of radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy are highly effective in HNSCC, there is significant morbidity associated with the disease and recurrence is common. There is great interest in identifying molecular events and pathways which drive HNSCC progression in order that targeted therapies may be developed. The loss of the tumor suppressor function such as p53 and NOTCH1, as well as activation of the STAT3 and STAT5 pathways, has been implicated in HNSCC progression. We have identified interactions between STAT3, STAT5, and the novel tumor suppressor SOCS2 to be important in HNSCC. To extend these findings to humans, we performed experiments to identify prognostic markers in HNSCC and to investigate the expression of STAT3, STAT5, and SOCS2 in HNSCC tissue.

Immunohistochemistry was performed on tissue microarrays from resected tumor specimens of 123 stage I-IVB oral cavity SCC patients (treated with surgery +/- adjuvant radiation therapy) with annotated clinical outcome information from a median follow up of 76 months collected at the UT/MD Anderson Cancer Center. The array was screened with antibodies against STAT5, STAT3, and SOCS2, and scored in a blinded fashion by a pathologist. SOCS2 expression (present vs. absent) correlated significantly with recurrence-free survival in both the univariate (hazard ratio 0.24, p=0.0003; Cox proportional hazards model) and multivariate (hazard ratio 0.24, p=0.0004) analyses. Notably all patients who lacked SOCS2 tumor expression recurred within 45 months. There was a trend towards a correlation of SOCS2 expression with overall survival (HR 0.50, p=0.11) and disease-specific survival (HR 0.52, p=0.28). SOCS2 expression did not significantly correlate with tumor stage and extracapsular extension emphasizing that its absence is an independent marker of poor prognosis. Our prior published work demonstrates that STAT5 drives SOCS2 expression. The expression of SOCS2 in these patient samples positively correlated with total and phosphoSTAT5 (r=0.29 and 0.21 respectively; p&lt;0.05) as well as total and phospho-STAT3 (r=0.27 and 0.26, respectively; p&lt;0.05). Likewise, we measured total and phosphoSTAT3, total and phosphoSTAT5, and SOCS2 in a panel of HNSCC cell lines. SOCS2 protein levels and phosphorylation of STAT3 and STAT5 varied among cell lines, however cells with elevated phosphoSTAT3 and STAT5 also showed elevated SOCS2 protein. This is the first study which identifies SOCS2 as an independent marker of prognosis in HNSCC. In support of its role as a tumor suppressor, the lack of SOSC2 expression was associated with universal recurrence.

This work was supported The University of Texas SPORE in Head and Neck Cancer (P50 CA097007), The Cancer Center Support Grant, and the ASCO Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award (WW).

Citation Format: Courtney Nicholas, Maria I. Nunez, Nusrat Harun, J. Jack Lee, Jeffrey Myers, Ignacio I. Wistuba, Banibrata Sen, Adel K. El-Naggar, Stephen Y. Lai, Faye M. Johnson, William N. William. SOCS2 (suppressor of cytokine signaling protein 2) is a prognostic indicator of progression-free survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5578. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5578