Expression of epidermal growth factor receptor in different salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma cell lines

Objective: To investigate the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor, a receptor tyrosine protein kinase, in the subcellular fractions of human salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma cell lines SACC-83 and SACC-LM. Methods: Low metastatic and high metastatic cells of the adenoid cystic carcinoma, SACC-83 and SACC-LM, were cultured. Their subcellular fractions were extracted. The expression of epidermal growth factor receptor was detected with Western blot method, and the results of protein expression were quantitatively analyzed by FluorChem V2.0 software. Results: The results of Western blot analysis indicated that, EGFR expression on the membrane of SACC-83 cells was significantly higher than that of SACC-LM cells, but its expression in cytoplasm was significantly less in the former than the later (P<0.01). In SACC-83 cell line, EGFR was over-expressed in membrane (P<0.01), but in SACC-LM cell line, EGFR was over-expressed in cytoplasm (P<0.01). Conclusion: The results suggest that the obtaining of metastasis ability is related to the high expression of EGFR protein in cytoplasm, so the molecular targeting therapy to EGFR may be an ideal treatment for the invasion and metastasis of salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma.