Purpose: To investigate the characteristic expression of apoptotic genes in epulis.
Methods: Thirty-six patients with epulis were recruited in this study, and related tumor and normal gingival tissues were collected. Six pairs of samples were used for PCR array analysis of apoptosis, and the other thirty pairs of samples were used for qRT-PCR replication. The expression levels of related genes were calculated with internal reference gene delta ΔΔCt. The data were analyzed with SPSS 17.0 software package.
Results: Compared with the normal gingival tissues, the expression levels of AIFM1, BCL2, BCL2L1, BCL2L2, BFAR, BIRC2, BIRC3, BIRC6, BNIP2, BNIP3, CD40LG, and XIAP were significantly increased in the gingival tissues, while the expression level of TNFRSF25 was decreased.
Conclusions: Over-expression of anti-apoptotic genes in Bcl-2 family and IAP family inhibits apoptosis of gingival tissues, which eventually causes epulis.