Moorthy Abirami, Venugopal Divyambika Catakapatri, Shyamsundar Vidyarani, Madhavan Yasasve, Ravindran Soundharya, Kuppuloganathan Mehanathan, Krishnamurthy Arvind, Sankarapandian Sathasivasubramanian, Ganapathy Vani, Ramshankar Vijayalakshmi
Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (DU), Porur, Chennai 600116, India.
Centre for Oral Cancer Prevention and Research, Sree Balaji Dental College and Hospital, Pallikaranai, Chennai 600100, India.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2022 Aug 11;12(8):1935. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics12081935.
Oral Submucous Fibrosis (OSMF) is a chronic debilitating disease more frequently encountered in the South-East Asian population. This disease represents a public health priority as it is grouped within oral potentially malignant disorders, with malignant transformation rates of around 7-19%. Hence, early identification of high-risk OSMF patients is of the utmost importance to prevent malignant transformation. Among various biomarkers, EGFR overexpression has an unfavorable clinical outcome, poor prognosis, and low survival rates in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC). The current study aimed to evaluate the expression of EGFR in saliva and exfoliated buccal cells of OSMF. Immunoexpression of EGFR was observed in healthy controls (n = 11), OSCC (n = 106), and OPMD with dysplasia (n = 56), which showed significant expression with increasing grades of dysplasia and OSCC. EGFR expression was evaluated in saliva and exfoliated buccal cells of healthy controls (n = 15), OSMF (n = 24), and OSCC (n = 10) patients using ELISA, which revealed significant expression in OSMF and OSCC. Validation studies were also performed using real-time PCR (RT-PCR) to compare gene expression in healthy controls (n = 9), OSMF (n = 9), and OSCC (n = 25), which showed significant 18-fold upregulation in OSCC and three-fold upregulation in OSMF when compared to healthy controls. Hence, saliva and exfoliated buccal cells could be considered as potential non-invasive diagnostic samples for the evaluation of high-risk patients of OSMF using EGFR as a biomarker.
口腔黏膜下纤维化（OSMF）是一种慢性致残性疾病，在东南亚人群中更为常见。这种疾病被列为口腔潜在恶性疾病，其恶性转化率约为7%-19%，因此是公共卫生的重点关注对象。因此，早期识别OSMF高危患者对于预防恶性转化至关重要。在各种生物标志物中，表皮生长因子受体（EGFR）过表达在口腔鳞状细胞癌（OSCC）中具有不良的临床结局、较差的预后和较低的生存率。本研究旨在评估EGFR在OSMF患者唾液和脱落颊细胞中的表达。在健康对照者（n = 11）、OSCC患者（n = 106）和发育异常的口腔潜在恶性疾病（OPMD）患者（n = 56）中观察到EGFR的免疫表达，其表达随发育异常和OSCC分级的增加而显著升高。使用酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA）评估了健康对照者（n = 15）、OSMF患者（n = 24）和OSCC患者（n = 10）唾液和脱落颊细胞中EGFR的表达，结果显示在OSMF和OSCC中表达显著。还使用实时聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）进行了验证研究，以比较健康对照者（n = 9）、OSMF患者（n = 9）和OSCC患者（n = 25）的基因表达，结果显示与健康对照者相比，OSCC中EGFR基因表达显著上调18倍，OSMF中上调3倍。因此，唾液和脱落颊细胞可被视为潜在的非侵入性诊断样本，用于以EGFR作为生物标志物评估OSMF高危患者。
