Label-Free Proteomics of Oral Mucosa Tissue to Identify Potential Biomarkers That Can Flag Predilection of Precancerous Lesions to Oral Cell Carcinoma: A Preliminary Study

Table 3

Differentially expressed proteins in control, leukoplakia, and cancerous phenotypes.

S. no.	Protein	Function	Relevance in our study	References
1	LDHA (L-lactate dehydrogenase A) chain	Facilitates glycolysis	Provides higher energy to cells for proliferation and survival bypassing oxidative phosphorylation thereby protecting cells from ROS damage	[29–33]
2	TXN (thioredoxin)	Maintain cellular redox homeostasis-protecting cells from ROS-induced damage	Decreased antioxidant activity results in endogenous ROS accumulation causing oxidative stress build-up that results in genomic instability promoting cellular proliferation	[36–39]
3	PLEC (plectin)	Acts as a cytoskeleton linker and scaffold-signaling protein that stabilize intermediate filament networks in the cell	Increased during higher amount of cellular proliferation, migration, and invasion in cancer cells	[42–44]
4	SPTAN1 (spectrin alpha chain, nonerythrocytic 1); fodrin	Acts as a scaffolding protein that maintains cell polarity and cell-to-cell contact	Reduced expression resulting in weaker cell-cell interaction resulting in detachment and metastasis of cancer cells	[45–46]
5	WDR1 (WD repeat-containing protein 1)	Promotes cofilin-mediated actin filament assembly	High amount of it in cancer enhances lamellipodial actin dynamics promoting cellular migration and cell division	[47–49]