Clinical proteomics is a relatively young methodical discipline, but it has developed rapidly in the last decade. Therefore the analysis and detection of the development of diseases, like oral squamous cell carcinoma has became in the center of interest.
Recent epidemiological studies have suggested that diabetes may be an important risk factor for the development of OSCC, as well as oral premalignant lesions. As for the last 20 years, diabetes and oral squamous cell carcinoma rates have been increasing rapidly, therefore a reliable detection method of major saliva proteins as possible biomarkers for OSCC is of key priority.
Method: In this study we collected whole saliva samples from patients with diabetes and from healthy subjects. The proteins were analyzed using SDS-PAGE and MALDI TOF/TOF mass spectrometry.
Result: We found an overexpression of Annexin A8, Peroxiredoxin-2 and Tyrosine kinase only by patients having diabetes. All these proteins have been previously described in cancer saliva samples also in OSCC.
Conclusion: Our current findings showed that testing saliva may be an effective and reliable method for detecting early biomarkers referring to oral cancer.