LCK, survivin and PI-3K in the molecular biomarker profiling of oral lichen planus and oral squamous cell carcinoma

T cell signaling is critical in oral lichen planus (OLP) based on the pathogenesis of this chronic inflammatory autoimmune mucocutaneous lesion. Lck plays a key role in T cell signaling; ultimately this signaling affects other targets such as PI-3K. Excessive activity in PI-3K inhibits apoptosis and promotes uncontrolled cell growth. Molecular biomarker profiling in OLP, Chronic Interface Mucosities (CIM), Epithelial Dysplasia (EpD) and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCCA) with application of the principle of biomarker voting may represent a new frontier in the diagnosis, assessment and the arguable debate of OLP transformation to cancer. The presence of Lck, PI-3K and Survivin, a cancer specific anti-apoptotic protein was assessed, using immunohistochemistry and tissue micro-array on patient samples, in OLP, SCCA, CIM and EpD. Lck expression was very high in 78.6 % of OLP patients compared to 3.7% in SCCA; PI-3K was high in 63% of SCCA, 100% of EpD, and 35.7% OLP cases. Survivin was high in 64.3% of OLP cases, 96.3% of SCCA, and 100% of EpD. CIM cases may be slightly different molecularly to OLP. Taken together, our data suggest that biomarker protein voting can be effectively used to isolate high-risk OLP cases. Specifically, we show data with four remarkable cases demonstrating that molecular factors are predictive of histopathology. We conclude that it is safer to treat OLP as premalignant lesions, to adopt aggressive treatment measure in histopathologic described well and moderately differentiated SCCA, and to monitor progress of these diseases molecularly using individualized auto-proteomic approach. The use of Lck inhibitors in OLP management needs to be investigated in the future.