Identification of novel oncogenes in oral cancer among elderly nonsmokers

Objectives: In recent years, an increase in oral cancer among elderly nonsmokers has been noted. The aim of this study was to identify novel oncogenes in oral cancer in older nonsmokers.

Material and methods: Whole-exome sequencing (WES) data from 324 oral cancer patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and insertions/deletions (INDELs) were extracted from the WES data of older patients. Fisher's exact test was performed to determine the specificity of variants in these genes. Finally, SNVs and INDELs were identified by target enrichment sequencing.

Results: Gene ontology analysis of 112 genes with significant SNVs or INDELs in nonsmokers revealed that nonsynonymous SNVs in HECTD4 were significantly more frequent in nonsmokers than in smokers by target enrichment sequencing (p = .02).

Conclusions: Further investigation of the function of HECTD4 variants as oncogenes in older nonsmokers is warranted.