Caitlin Joel
Research Mentor(s): Joseph Decker
Mentor Department: Cariology, Restorative Sciences, and Endodontics
Authors: Joseph Decker, Caitlin Joel
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 95
Abstract
The motivating premise of this study is to understand the reasons underlying men being more likely to have oral cancer compared to women. Understanding the patient-specific mechanistic underpinnings of oral cancer are essential for both oral and systemic health. The primary goal of this study focuses on sexual dimorphism in oral cancer through single cell sequencing. We examined processed publicly available data files of tumors located on the tongue of male and female patients. Single cell sequencing analysis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) were performed in R, utilizing the Seurat v3 package. Both male and female cell clustering showed differences. 15 clusters were observed. Clusters 0, 3, 5, and 11 were expressed more in males compared to females, while clusters 2, 7, 12, and 13 were expressed more in females, with no significant difference between other clusters. Gene ontology analysis showed that clusters associated with male patients expressed differences in cell types that regulate cellular, developmental, and immune system processes including antigen processing and presence of exogenous antigen. Clusters associated with female patients expressed cell types that regulate response to stimulus, morphogenesis, and cell migration. Analysis from the single-cell sequencing data showed significant differences in the clusters that regulate these cell types. Together, this analysis suggests that there is a meaningful difference between male and female HNSCC patients that could form the basis of targeted therapy.
