Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the seventh most common malignancy and the ninth most frequent cause of cancer death in Europe. Within Europe, Hungary has one of the highest rates of OSCC incidence and mortality. Thus, there is an urgent need to improve early detection. Saliva, as a readily available body fluid, became an increasingly important substance for the detection of biomarkers for many diseases. Different research groups have identified salivary biomarkers specific for OSCC for different countries. In this study, saliva samples of Hungarian patients with OSCC were studied to discover disease-specific and perhaps region-specific biomarkers. LC-mass spectrometry (MS)/MS analysis on a linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometer was used for qualitative and quantitative salivary protein profiling. More than 500 proteins were identified from saliva by shotgun proteomics. The up- and downregulated proteins in the saliva of patients with OSCC highlighted the importance of protein-protein interaction networks involving the immune system and proteolysis in disease development. Two potential biomarkers from our shotgun analysis and a third candidate reported earlier by a Taiwanese group were further examined by ELISA on a larger reference set of samples. Resistin, a biomarker reported in Taiwan but not validated in our study, highlights the necessity of application of standardized analysis methods in different ethnic or geographical populations to identify biomarkers with sufficient specificity and sensitivity.
Keywords: ELISA; biomarker; oral squamous cell carcinoma; proteomics analysis.