TY - JOUR A1 - Foerster, Yannick A1 - Stöver, Timo A1 - Wagenblast, Jens A1 - Diensthuber, Marc A1 - Balster, Sven A1 - Gabrielpillai, Jennis A1 - Petzold, Hannah A1 - Geißler, Christin T1 - Relevance of neurotrophin receptors CD271 and TrkC for prognosis, migration, and proliferation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma T2 - Cells N2 - Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and often has a poor prognosis. The present study investigated the role of the low affinity nerve growth factor receptor CD271 as a putative therapy target in HNSCC. Neurotrophins that bind to CD271 also have a high affinity for the tropomyosin receptor kinase family (Trk), consisting of TrkA, TrkB, and TrkC, which must also be considered in addition to CD271. A retrospective study and functional in vitro cell line tests (migration assay and cell sorting) were conducted in order to evaluate the relevance of CD271 expression alone and with regard to Trk expression. CD271 and Trks were heterogeneously expressed in human HNSCC. The vast majority of tumors exhibited CD271 and TrkA, whereas only half of the tumors expressed TrkB and TrkC. High expression of CD271-positive cells predicted a bad clinical outcome of patients with HNSCC and was associated with distant metastases. However, the human carcinomas that also expressed TrkC had a reduced correlation with distant metastases and better survival rates. In vitro, CD271 expression marked a subpopulation with higher proliferation rates, but proliferation was lower in tumor cells that co-expressed CD271 and TrkC. The CD271 inhibitor LM11A 31 suppressed cell motility in vitro. However, neither TrkA nor TrkB expression were linked to prognosis or cell proliferation. We conclude that CD271 is a promising candidate that provides prognostic information for HNSCC and could be a putative target for HNSCC treatment. KW - HNSCC KW - CD271 KW - p75 KW - Trk KW - TrkC KW - HPV KW - LM11A 31 KW - PF-06273340 KW - neurotrophins Y1 - 2019 UR - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51115 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-511156 SN - 2073-4409 N1 - This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited VL - 8 IS - 10, Art. 1167 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER -