Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine if protein-by-products secondary to cervical cancer oncogenes appear in the saliva.

Methods: Four pooled (n=10 subjects/pool) stimulated whole saliva specimens from women were analyzed. One pooled specimen was from healthy women, while other pooled specimens were from women diagnosed with CIN 2 moderate cervical dysplasia (n=10), CIN 3 severe cervical dysplasia (n=10) and the other pooled group from women diagnosed with cervical carcinoma in situ (n=10). Differential expression of proteins was measured by isotopically tagging proteins in each groups and comparing them to the healthy control group. Saliva from each of the pooled samples was trypsinized and the peptide digests labeled with the appropriate iTRAQ reagent. Labeled peptides from each of the digests were combined and analyzed by reverse phase (C18) capillary chromatography on an Applied Biosystems QStar LC-MS/MS mass spectrometer equipped with an LC-Packings HPLC.

Results: The results of the salivary analyses yielded approximately 133 proteins in the saliva specimens. Forty eight proteins were differentially expressed between the healthy control pool, precancerous and cancerous conditions.

Conclusions: The study suggests that saliva is a fluid suffused with solubilized by-products of oncogenic expression and that these proteins may be modulated secondary to precancerous and cancerous conditions and that these proteins may be useful in the study of cervical cancer progression, treatment efficacy and the tailoring of individualized patient care.

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