Feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (FOSCC) is characterized by high local invasiveness and early bone lysis. The late diagnosis largely limits the efficacy of therapy and increases treatment‐related morbidity. The aim of this exploratory study was to assess the methylation pattern of 10 candidate genes and TP53 mutational status in histologic samples of FOSCC. Results were compared with normal oral mucosa and oral inflammatory lesions, in order to establish a gene panel for FOSCC detection. For 10 cats, the above analyses were also performed on oral brushing samples, in order to explore the utility of these methods for screening purposes. Thirty‐one FOSCC, 25 chronic inflammatory lesions and 12 controls were included. TP53 mutations were significantly more frequent in the FOSCC (68%) than in the non‐neoplastic oral mucosa (3%; P <.001). Based on lasso regression analysis, a step‐wise algorithm including TP53, FLI1, MiR124‐1, KIF1A and MAGEC2 was proposed. The algorithm allowed to differentiate FOSCC with 94% sensitivity and 100% specificity (accuracy, 97%). When applying the proposed algorithm on 10 brushing samples, accuracy decreased to 80%. These results indicate that the altered DNA methylation of specific genes is present in FOSCC, together with a significant proportion of TP53 mutations. Such alterations are infrequent in normal oral mucosa and chronic stomatitis in cats, suggesting their involvement in feline oral carcinogenesis and their utility as diagnostic biomarkers. Further studies on a high number of brushing samples will be needed to assess the utility of a screening test for the early detection of FOSCC.

中文翻译：

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DNA 甲基化和 TP53 突变状态分析用于区分猫口腔鳞状细胞癌与非肿瘤性粘膜：一项初步研究。

猫口腔鳞状细胞癌 (FOSCC) 的特点是局部侵袭性强和早期骨溶解。晚期诊断在很大程度上限制了治疗的疗效并增加了与治疗相关的发病率。这项探索性研究的目的是评估FOSCC 组织学样本中10 个候选基因的甲基化模式和TP53突变状态。结果与正常口腔黏膜和口腔炎症性病变进行比较，以建立用于 FOSCC 检测的基因面板。对于 10 只猫，还对口腔刷牙样本进行了上述分析，以探索这些方法用于筛查目的的效用。包括 31 个 FOSCC、25 个慢性炎症病变和 12 个对照。TP53FOSCC 中的突变 (68%) 显着高于非肿瘤性口腔黏膜 (3%; P  <.001)。基于套索回归分析，提出了包括TP53、FLI1、MiR124-1、KIF1A和MAGEC2的逐步算法。该算法允许以 94% 的灵敏度和 100% 的特异性（准确度，97%）区分 FOSCC。当在 10 个刷牙样本上应用所提出的算法时，准确率下降到 80%。这些结果表明 FOSCC 中存在特定基因的 DNA 甲基化改变，以及显着比例的TP53突变。这种改变在猫的正常口腔黏膜和慢性口腔炎中并不常见，这表明它们参与了猫口腔癌的发生及其作为诊断生物标志物的效用。需要对大量刷牙样本进行进一步研究，以评估筛查测试对早期发现 FOSCC 的效用。