Expression of myeloid zinc finger 1 and the correlation to clinical aspects of oral squamous cell carcinoma

The myeloid zinc finger 1 (MZF1) is a zinc finger transcription factor which regulates myeloid differentiation and oncogenesis. However, little information is available concerning the MZF1 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and its correlation with patients’ prognosis. We detected the expression of MZF1 in 274 patients with OSCC using tissue microarrays (TMAs) and evaluated the associations between nuclear MZF1 expression and the clinical parameters of OSCC patients. We found that nuclear MZF1 expression was present in 190/274 (69.3 %) cases, and loss of nuclear expression of MZF1 was associated with more advanced clinical stages (p = 0.011) and larger tumor size (p = 0.002), but not associated with positive lymph node metastasis and distal metastasis. Importantly, tongue squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) patients with negative nuclear MZF1 expression had significantly worse overall survival rates (log-rank test, p = 0.028). In conclusion, our results revealed that the loss of nuclear expression of MZF1 in OSCC samples can predict the progression of OSCC and the survival of OSCC patients in Taiwan.