The human embryonic-lethal abnormal vision-like protein, HuR, stabilizes mRNA containing adenine- and uridine- rich elements in their 3’untranslated region. Because cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) mRNA is a cellular transcript that contains an adenine- and uridine-rich element, it can be regulated by the HuR protein. In this study, we examined the relationship between COX-2, HuR, MVD, and the clinicopathological parameters. Nineteen out of 43 cases of HNSCC showed high level of COX-2expression, and 68% of these patients showed high COX-2 immuno-reactivity indicating the strong expression of the cytoplasmic HuR protein. Also, MVD expression in the cases with high COX-2 expression was higher than in the cases with low COX-2 expression. These results suggest a strong correlation between the overexpression of cytoplasmic HuR and COX-2 expression in HNSCC, and that COX-2 is associated with MVD in HNSCC. In conclusion, COX-2 regulated by cytoplasmic HuR may be a good tumor angiogenic factor in HNSCC.

I. INTRODUCTION
 II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
  1. Patients and Tissue Collection
  2. Immunohistochemistry
  3. Scoring of the HuR and COX-2 stains
  4. MVD quantification
  5. Tatistical analysis
 III. RESULTS
  1. Clinicopathological data
  2. Expression of HuR and COX-2 in HNSCC
  3. Correlation between cytoplasmic HuRand COX-2 expression
  4. Correlation between cytoplasmic HuR orCOX-2 expression and MVD
  5. The relationship between clinicopathologic variables and the expression ofcytoplasmic HuR, COX-2, and MVD
 IV. DISCUSSION
 V. REFERENCES

• 한혜숙(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry and Institute of Oral Bioscience, Chonbuk National University) | Hye Suk Han
• 조성대(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry and Institute of Oral Bioscience, Chonbuk National University) | Sung Dae Cho
• 심정현(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry and Institute of Oral Bioscience, Chonbuk National University) | Jung Hyun Shim
• 신지애(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry and Institute of Oral Bioscience, Chonbuk National University) | Ji Ae Shin
• 조남표(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry and Institute of Oral Bioscience, Chonbuk National University) | Nam Pyo Cho correspondence