Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Lines in Pharmacological Research: Models for Mechanistic Insights and Therapeutic Advancements

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most prevalent form of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, accounting for nearly 90% of oral malignancies worldwide. Despite advances in surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies, prognosis remains poor, especially in advanced or metastatic cases. Preclinical models play a pivotal role in developing and testing novel anticancer agents, with OSCC-derived cell lines serving as indispensable tools for drug discovery and mechanistic research. These models provide reproducible, cost-effective platforms for high-throughput screening, elucidation of signaling pathways, resistance profiling, and biomarker identification. Widely utilized OSCC cell lines, including SCC-4, SCC-9, SCC-25, and CAL27, have contributed to understanding critical processes such as proliferation, apoptosis, migration, invasion, and therapeutic resistance. This review highlights the biological and pharmacological relevance of OSCC cell lines, emphasizing their advantages, limitations, and contributions to translational cancer research. A deeper understanding of these models is essential to bridge preclinical findings with clinical outcomes and to accelerate the development of innovative therapeutic strategies against OSCC.