Serum-based metabolomics characterization of patients with reticular oral lichen planus

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory mucosal lesion and systemic disease. In OLP, reticular type is the most common presentation of the disease. However, little is known about it. The aim of this study was to analyze the pathogenesis of reticular OLP and its possible associations with the pathological changes in other organ systems through serum-based metabolomics.

Blood samples were obtained from 16 reticular OLP patients and 24 control subjects. Liquid chromatography (LC)-mass spectrometry (MS) system was used to identify differentially expressed metabolites. The pathways analysis was performed by MetaboAnalyst. Pathological network was constructed by Cytoscape software.

Totally, 31 modulated metabolites were identified, whose dysregulations affected 25 metabolic pathways and 7 pathological processes in the disease. Through an impact-value screen (impact-value＞0.1), 6 pathways were selected as the significantly dysregulated pathways. Pathological network showed that these metabolites participated in 7 pathological processes, that is, apoptosis process, DNA damage and repair disorder, oxidative stress injury, carbohydrate metabolism disorder, mood dysfunction, inflammatory lesion, and other pathological process.

The study demonstrated that reticular OLP could cause the dysregulations of the metabolites in serum, which might be also further linked to other organ and systemic diseases through the blood system, such as diabetes, sleep disorders, and depression, etc.