Salivary Proteomics Identifies Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Biomarkers

By Will Boggs, MD

NEW YORK OCT 06, 2008 (Reuters Health) - Protein patterns in saliva may be able to identify patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), according to a report in the October 1st Clinical Cancer Research.

"Saliva is an emerging biofluid that contains disease discriminatory biomarkers of proteomic and genomic origins," Dr. David T. Wong from University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California told Reuters Health. "These diagnostic toolboxes are now allowing scientists to systematically discover disease-specific biomarkers in saliva that will be in clinical usage in 3-5 years."

Dr. Wong and colleagues sought to discover and validate differentially expressed proteins in saliva from patients with OSCC that could serve as potential biomarkers for OSCC detection using a subtractive proteomics approach to profile salivary proteins from 16 oral cancer patients and 16 matched healthy subjects.

Fifty-two proteins were found in OSCC patients but not in healthy controls, the authors report, and 29 proteins were found only in the controls.

Among 12 candidate proteins upregulated in OSCC patients, five potential biomarkers showed significant differences between OSCC patients and matched controls. The potential biomarkers included M2BP, MRP14, CD59, catalase, and profilin.

ROC analysis showed that the five candidate proteins collectively provide a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 83% for OSCC detection, the researchers note.

"The key to reducing the mortalities and morbidities of oral cancer, as in all cancers, is early detection and effective screening tools," Dr. Wong explained. "Saliva, as we have shown, is a credible biofluid that harbors highly discriminatory proteomic and transcriptomic biomarkers that can detect oral cancer with excellent sensitivity and specificity."

Dr. Wong added: "Almost four years ago, we discovered and validated 7 mRNA biomarkers in saliva that can detect oral cancer with >90% accuracy. We now can combine these two saliva diagnostic alphabets (proteins and mRNAs) to generate the most discriminatory oral cancer detection biomarker panel to be tested in a multicenter validation study."

SOURCE:

"Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters Limited. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon."