Imunodetection of repair protein hMSH2 in actinic cheilitis and normal labial mucosa

Abstract

The actinic cheilitis is a precancerous lesion of the lip. The exposure to direct sun light radiation has been indicated as the most important etiologic agent of both the actinic cheilitis and the squamous cells carcinoma of the lip. Thereby, other studies are necessary to help mapping the molecular events that contribute to the actinic cheilitis progession into a neoplasia. The hMSH2 protein of the DNA mismatch repair interacts with proteins that constitute the main repair pathways of the damage caused by ultraviolet radiation, nucleotide excision repair. Therefore, it is important to evaluate this protein in actinic cheilitis. The propose of this study was describe and to analyze the hMSH2 protein immunoexpression in samples of actinic cheilitis with different histological degrees (mild, moderate and severe), as well as in normal inferior lip epithelium. When actinic cheilitis with different histological degrees were compared among themselves, the results showed no statistical differences. There is no significant statistic differences among the actinic cheilitis and the normal lip mucosa. These results suggest that the hMSH2 protein does not participate on the actinic cheilitis development into squamous cell carcinoma of the lip, however other studies are necessary for a better understanding of DNA mismatch repair system participation at the context.