Lin Xue-cai, Sun Hong-ying, Zhen Yue-xiang, Zhang Hui, Shi Hang, Wang Xia-xia
J Oral Pathol Med. 2014 Sep;43(8):600-5. doi: 10.1111/jop.12168.
Emerging evidence indicates that the interaction between glucocorticoid receptor α (GRα) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) is a key pathogenetic cross talk in the autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. The objective of this study was to determine the GRα expression in patients with oral lichen planus (OLP) and investigate its correlation with NF-κB in OLP.
We compared the expression of GRα and NF-κB in oral biopsy specimens from patients with OLP(n = 32) against normal controls (n = 12) and investigated the correlation between the expression of GRα and NF-κB in OLP.
Immunohistochemistry showed that GRα mainly expressed in the cytoplasm of keratinocytes of basal and spinosum layer of OLP. Both real-time quantitative PCR and Western blots revealed that the mRNA and protein expression levels of GRα were decreased compared with normal controls (both P < 0.001). Conversely, those levels of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) were increased compared with normal controls (both P < 0.001). Importantly, a significant inverse correlation between the GRα and NF-κB was found (P < 0.05).
Our findings demonstrated that low expression of GRα in OLP correlates with activation of NF-κB, which indicates that the cross talk between GRα and NF-κB in OLP may become a new therapeutic target and represent a new approach to explore the pathogenesis of OLP.
新出现的证据表明，糖皮质激素受体α（GRα）与核因子κB（NF-κB）之间的相互作用是自身免疫性和炎性疾病发病机制中的关键病理交叉对话。本研究的目的是确定口腔扁平苔藓（OLP）患者中GRα的表达情况，并研究其与OLP中NF-κB的相关性。
我们比较了OLP患者（n = 32）与正常对照者（n = 12）口腔活检标本中GRα和NF-κB的表达情况，并研究了OLP中GRα与NF-κB表达之间的相关性。
免疫组织化学显示，GRα主要表达于OLP患者基底层和棘层角质形成细胞的细胞质中。实时定量PCR和蛋白质免疫印迹均显示，与正常对照相比，GRα的mRNA和蛋白质表达水平均降低（均P < 0.001）。相反，与正常对照相比，核因子κB（NF-κB）的水平升高（均P < 0.001）。重要的是，发现GRα与NF-κB之间存在显著的负相关（P < 0.05）。
我们的研究结果表明，OLP中GRα的低表达与NF-κB的激活相关，这表明OLP中GRα与NF-κB之间的交叉对话可能成为新的治疗靶点，并为探索OLP的发病机制提供新的途径。
