Isolation of circulating microRNA in saliva

Abstract

Oral cancer diagnosis can be greatly facilitated by early diagnosis in order to improve the 50 % 5-year mortality that has not changed much over the last years. Saliva is an easily accessible medium that has been shown to contain microvesicles (exosomes) that enclose microRNAs. We have previously demonstrated that the majority of salivary microRNAs are within exosomes. MicroRNAs have been implicated in oral cancer and the use of salivary exosomal microRNAs holds the promise of identification of diagnostic and prognostic markers.