Urine metabolic profiling for the pathogenesis research of erosive oral lichen planus

Abstract

Objective: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a relatively common chronic immune-pathological and inflammatory disease and potentially oral precancerous lesion. Erosive OLP patients show the higher rate of malignant transformation than patients with non-erosive OLP. Identifying the potential biomarkers related to erosive OLP may help to understand the pathogenesis of the diseases.

Methods: Metabolic profiles were compared in control and patient subjects with erosive OLP by using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS) coupled with pattern recognition methods An integrative analysis was used to identify the perturbed metabolic pathways and pathological processes that may be associated with the disease.

Results: In total, 12 modulated metabolites were identified and considered as the potential biomarkers of erosive OLP. Multiple metabolic pathways and pathological processes were involved in erosive OLP.

Conclusion: The dysregulations of these metabolites could be used to explain the pathogenesis of the disease, which could also be the potential therapeutic targets for the disease.

Keywords: Erosive oral lichen planus; Metabonomics; Potential biomarkers.