Searching Cell-Secreted Proteomes for Potential Oral Cancer Biomarkers

Oral cavity cancer is one of the major global health issues. In Taiwan, oral cancer has been one of the top 10 causes of death from cancer since 1991. According to the annual report from the Department of Health of the Executive Yuan, the death toll for oral cancer in males has been increasing at an alarming rate. Oral cancer currently is the fourth most common cancer in the male population in Taiwan.The molecular mechanisms leading to development of oral cancer are not well understood at present. This is no useful diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers for oral cancer at present. The aim of this study is to identify potential biomarkers with proteomics approach for oral cancer. Many proteins over-expressed in tumor tissues are secreted. Some of these proteins can be detected in sera from tumor and have been considered good for tumor markers candidates. In this new 3-year research study, we will concentrate on “ Oral cancer in Taiwan” and find out some potential biomakers of oral cancer. The strategy is to extract and analyze the proteins secreted from oral cancer cell lines with SDS-PAGE and MALDI-TOF MS, and the selected proteins will be confirmed by Western blotting. The detected potential biomarkers will be examined and confirmed with immunohistochemical staining (IHC) in the biopsy specimen from both oral cancer patients and oral pre-cancer patients. Then levels of detected proteins will be evaluated by ELISA in sera from oral cancer patients, oral pre-cancer patients and healthy individuals. By completing the research, we may be able to find out some diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers for oral cancers, including pre-cancer lesions.

Project ID:PC9706-0782
External Project ID:NSC96-2628-B182-014-MY2