Biomarker identification in oral cancer by using proteomics

Abstract

It is now believed that oral squamous cell carcinoma follows a similar pattern in its development, and thus is preceded by premalignant lesions such as leukoplakia, dysplasia, erythroplakia, lichen planus, and oral submucous fibrosis. It is critical to elucidate the precise nature of the genetic and protein alterations occurring at each step. Proteomics have been successfully employed in studies of other cancers with precancerous lesion like esophageal adenocarcinoma, which could be transformed from barrett’s metaplasia. However, a few articles have reported the proteomics application in oral cancer cells or tissues. The article reviewed the studies which concentrate on the identification and validation of biomarkers in oral cancers using proteomics, and thus could provide some typical and applicable platform to apply proteomics technologies in a well-defined molecular and pathological framework in biomarker searching.