Salivary proteomic comparison of oral lichen planus and oral leukoplakia

The objective of the study is to compare salivary proteome profiles in patients with Oral Lichen Planus (OLP), Oral Leukoplakia (OL), and healthy controls without oral mucosal diseases. Three distinct cohorts were established: patients with OLP, patients with OL, and a control group with clinically normal oral mucosa. Unstimulated saliva samples collected from each group were pooled to their respective groups and subjected to nano-liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (nLC-MS/MS) analysis. Protein quantification was performed using a label-free quantification approach via Proteome Discoverer 2.2, with protein identification based on the Uniprot reference database. Differentially expressed proteins were determined by comparing label-free quantification data across the groups.