Asian Pacifc Journal of Cancer Prevention, Vol 22 1837 DOI:10.31557/APJCP.2021.22.6.1837 Salivary Protein Profle as Potential Biomarker for OSCC Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 22 (6), 1837-1841 Introduction Oral cancer, histologically about 90% in the form of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), is a high-effect and common form of disease-related with the oral cavity (Gupta et al., 2013; Mascitti et al., 2018). Many environmental and genetic factors are often associated with the development of this disorder but the major regional predisposing risk factor for OSCC is chewing of betel quid and “paan” in India (Garg et al., 2014; Lepcha et al., 2021). World Health Organization and International Agency for cancer research classifed areca nut as a group-I human carcinogen with enough verifcation of increased risk of precancerous oral lesion and cancer of the oral cavity (Hernandez et al., 2017). In Northeast India, a variety of raw areca nut is used in combination lime paste and piece of betel leaf without tobacco locally termed as tamol in Assam. Frequent and regular scratches of betel nut and betel leaf form ulcers in the oral cavity (Kumar et al., 2021). Comprises strong chemical compound in slaked lime which further forms scars or ulcers by burns the soft tissue in the oral cavity. Which can further be a main contributing factor for developing oral cancer (Phukan et al., 2001; Borkotoky et al., 2020). OSCC diagnosis depends on a thorough oral cavity examination, for possible signs and symptoms of the Abstract Objective: To identify potential proteomic salivary biomarker in tamol chewers and comparing it to healthy and Oral squamous cell carcinoma cases. Methods: A total of ffty unstimulated saliva samples were collected from the healthy volunteers, tamol chewers (without tobacco), and OSCC patients referred to North-East cancer Hospital, Jorabat, Assam, India. The 2-D gel analysis and western blotting were performed to analyze protein profling. Results: The identifed proteins were serum albumin, HSP (Heat shock protein) 27, gamma actin, SCC (Squamous cell carcinoma) 1, and Annexin A4. All the proteins were associated with OSCC development when their values were compared with those of normal healthy subjects. HSP27 was subjected to further validation using western blotting methods. An increase of 18.39% (Serum Albumin), 15.04% (gamma actin), 14.01% (SSC 1), and 20.22% (ANX4) were observed in Tamol chewers when compared with healthy control subjects. Conclusion: Our results revealed that the identifed salivary proteins have a positive association with OSCC development. Profling of these saliva proteomes especially HSP (Heat shock protein) 27 as a potential biomarker for OSCC detection in the high-risk population is recommended. Keywords: OSCC- Oral squamous cell carcinoma- ANXA4 - Annexin A4- HSP-Heat shock protein- SCC RESEARCH ARTICLE Protein Profle of Human Saliva as a Predictive and Prognostic Tool for OSCC in Tamol Chewer’s Population in Assam disease, followed by tissue biopsy. Besides diagnosis based on tissue, and body fuids like saliva and blood are the extensively studied samples that may comprise consistent biomarkers for cancer analysis. The saliva sample is an enlightening body fuid containing a range of analytes such as protein (Singh et al.,2020; Roi et al., 2020), mRNA (Oh et al., 2020), antioxidant profle (Lepcha et al., 2019), and DNA (Lepcha et al., 2021; Borkotoky et al., 2020) which can be used as diagnostic and prognostic markers for clinical and therapeutic applications. Several studies have investigated the use of salivary proteins as a potential diagnostic marker for oral cancer. The identifcation of proteins is either cleaved by gel electrophoresis or enzymatic digestion by the procedure to produce peptides (Hu et al., 2008; Ploypetch et al., 2020). Approximately, 3000 proteins have been identifed in saliva by using various procedures (Hu et al., 2008; Jarai et al., 2012; Ploypetch et al., 2020). Similarly, various potential biomarkers identifed from the saliva of OSCC such as cytokeratin 19 fragment (Cyfra21–1) (Rathore et al., 2020), albumin (Nguyen et al., 2020), telomerase (Sannam et al., 2016), transferrin (Nguyen et al., 2020), glutathione (Singh et al., 2020) were identifed. Thus, analyzing salivary protein profles as potential biomarkers or molecular targets for early detection for OSCCs in tamol chewers and a feasible target to screen Editorial Process: Submission:02/09/2021 Acceptance:06/20/2021 1 Department of Pathology , Assam Downtown University, India. 2 Assam Down Town University Panikhaiti, Assam, India. 3 Director Dr. Bhubaneswar Borooah Cancer Institute Guwahati, Assam, India. *For Correspondence: lakilepcha@gmail.com Lhakit lepcha 1 *, Manash P Sarma 2 , Amal C Kataki 3 , Wankupar Wankhar 1 , B G Unni 2