Immunohistochemical analyses of survivin and heat shock protein 90 expression in patients with oral lichen planus

Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis protein. Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a molecular chaperone that is involved in protein folding and maturation. Alterations in the expression of survivin and Hsp90 have been reported in several chronic inflammatory diseases. No study has evaluated the expression of survivin and Hsp90 in the same lesion of oral lichen planus (OLP). The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of survivin and Hsp90 in biopsy specimens of patients with OLP and controls. Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded biopsy specimens from 29 patients with OLP and 29 healthy subjects were used in this study. Immunohistochemical methods were used to detect the expression of survivin and Hsp90 in the oral epithelia of these two groups. The distributions of positively stained epithelial cells were evaluated with a semiquantitative method, using an immunostaining score system. Expression of survivin and Hsp90 in oral epithelia of patients with OLP was significantly different in comparison with that in controls (P = 0.001 and P < 0.001 respectively). These differences were in the direction towards reduction in the expression of survivin and Hsp90 in the oral epithelia of patients with OLP . Our results provided additional evidence that alterations in the expression of survivin and Hsp90 in oral epithelia might be associated with pathological stress, such as chronic inflammation, in patients with OLP.