ABSTRACT
There are hoarding documents for the biological importance of cyclooxygenase-2 [COX-2] in pancreatic carcinogenesis. We aimed to thoroughly investigate the DNA sequence variations of whole COX-2 exons in a large case- control study of pancreatic cancer by direct sequencing. The entire exonic regions of COX-2 including 10 exons were sequenced in the germline DNA of 96 patients with pancreatic cancer. Selected variants within exons six to seven [E6E7] amplicon from the test panel were genotyped in 96 controls. The COX-2 gene was demonstrated to be genetically conserved. Four missense mutations were found in three cases. However the common variant c.724-10_724-7deIATTT [rs20123141 1] that is located in intron 6, showed significant difference between cases and controls [21 [21.9%] vs 11 [%11.5], p=0.05]. This study determined that COX-2 has a conservative sequence, which is required for its enzymatic activity and supports the important role of this enzyme's expression in pancreatic cancer rather than any changes in its activity. The effect of intronic variant rs201231411 on COX-2 expression could be analyzed in future studies
ABSTRACT
Saliva is multifunctional; it is a lubricant for speech, aide for food digestion, and protective against microorganisms. It is voluntarily accessible, composed of proteins and electrolytes, and is ideal for the early detection of a wide range of diseases. Because of a complex protein mixture, saliva proteomics has the potential to be a novel approach in the search for protein biomarkers. Most salivary proteomics research has been performed in academic institutions that study oral health. However, saliva offers a promising clinical strategy for characterizing the association between salivary protein markers and pancreatic cancer. In this review we focus on the protein composition of saliva as it represents an important field, both for the oral environment, as well as disease diagnosis and monitoring.