Gene expression of oncogenes, antimicrobial peptides, and cytokines in the development of oral leukoplakia

Cellular Distribution and Gene Expression Pattern of Metastasin (S100A4), Calgranulin A (S100A8), and Calgranulin B (S100A9) in Oral Lesions as Markers for Molecular Pathology

“…Previous studies of our group investigated subsets of genes that might be important in cancerogenesis (8,43,45). We found S100A7 expression to be altered in different oral lesion entities (15,43,45). Thus, we examined, whether other S100 proteins could be used for supporting risk estimation of malignant transformation.…”

“…The conventional procedure is based on histopathological analysis of tissue specimens in order to predict the development of carcinomatous transformation in case of LP, because the estimated risk varies from 3% in homogenous LPs to 38% in non-homogenous LPs (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). It might be an advantage for risk estimation in respect of a putative malignant transformation if an analysis regarding the expression of genes involved in growth and cell cycle control could be used in addition to histopathological analysis (43)(44)(45). Alterations of a number of genes were recognized in the past.…”

Human Defensins: Potential Tools for Clinical Applications

“…A decreased hBD-1 expression has also been reported in oral squamous cell carcinoma [82]. As human defensins are involved in chronic periodontal inflammation as well as the carcinogenesis of oral tumors, it is an interesting new hypothesis that they might act as key-molecules in the inflammation-tumorsequence [7,8,16,[83][84][85][86]. On the one hand DEFB1 encoding for hBD-1 has been identified as a major periodontitis-associated gene [87] with important functions in local host defense.…”

“…On the one hand DEFB1 encoding for hBD-1 has been identified as a major periodontitis-associated gene [87] with important functions in local host defense. On the other, hBD-1 was found to be an important factor in proliferation control of oral cancers [7,8,16,83,85]. In regulating proliferation in oral squamous cell carcinoma cells, hBD-1 inhibits proliferation as a tumorsuppressor [80][81][82][83] whereas hBD-3 promotes proliferation as a potential protooncogene [83,84] (Figure 4).…”

“…Human α-defensin-3 has been described as a tumor marker for lymphocytes [90]. High gene expression levels of α-defensin-3 and -4 have been detected in benign oral neoplasia [85,86]. Also in the digestive tract, human α-defensin-6 is considered to be a tumor marker for benign epithelial colon cancers, such as colon adenoma [91].…”