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 4

Differentially expressed proteins in control, erythroplakia, 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	ALDH2 (aldehyde dehydrogenase 2)	Metabolizes aldehydes	Aggressive behaviours like migration and invasion were inversely related to ALDH2 expression	[34–35]
3	PRDX1 (peroxiredoxin 1)	Maintains cellular redox homeostasis-scavenging peroxides	Decreased antioxidant activity results in endogenous ROS accumulation causing oxidative stress build-up that results in genomic instability promoting cellular proliferation	[36–39]
4	HSPA1B (heat shock 70 kDa protein 1B)	Stress-inducible molecular chaperone	Higher expression of heat shock proteins enhanced the resistance of cells to apoptosis resulting in countering hypoxic stress and enhancing cell survival	[40–41]
5	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]