Analysis of human serum metabolome for potential biomarkers identification of erosive oral lichen planus.

BACKGROUND: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic auto-inflammatory mucositis and potentially oral premalignant lesion. Erosive OLP patients display the higher canceration rate as compared to the patients with non-erosive OLP. Identification of the potential biomarkers associated with erosive OLP may help to investigate the disease pathogenesis and to improve clinical treatment.

METHODS: Ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS) combined with pattern recognition approaches were integrated to acquire differentially expressed metabolites for the pathways analysis and elucidate mechanisms of disease.

RESULTS: Totally, 10 modulated metabolites were characterized as the potential biomarkers of erosive OLP, whose dysregulations could affect multiple metabolic pathways and pathological processes in the disease.

CONCLUSION: These findings indicated that the analysis of human serum metabolome might be conducive to the achievement of the objectives of this study.