International Session 9 Head and Neck-Basic 2

Anaplastic thyroid carcinomas(ATCs)are a relatively rare but highly aggressive type of thyroid carcinoma.Most ATCs are indicated to develop from well-differentiated thyroid carcinomas(DTCs) , mainly papillary thyroid carcinomas(PTCs) , through anaplastic transformation.However, the mechanism remains largely unknown.In this study, we investigated the pluripotent gene expression profile in human ATCs.［Method］Immunostaining of pluripotency-related proteins(SALL4, LIN28)was performed on a total of 15 ATC cases.Then, public gene expression data were modified to identify pluripotencyrelated gene groups in undifferentiated thyroid cancer.Furthermore, we investigated whether ATCs could be induced by artificially inducing dedifferentiation in human PTC cell lines or genetically engineered PTC mouse models.［Results］Among15 ATC cases, SALL4 expression was observed in 6 cases(40％) , and LIN28 expression was observed in 2 cases(13％) .The correlation analysis showed ATC had intermediate characteristics between PTC and pluripotent stem cells.［Conclusion］Expression of pluripotency-related genes contributes to anaplastic transformation in some ATCs.