Oral Mucosa Cells

In genotoxic assays inorganic arsenicals are either inactive or weak mutagens but are able to produce chromosomal effects including aberrations and sister chromatid exchange in most test systems. Studies of exposed human have detected higher incidences of chromosomal aberrations in peripheral lymphocytes and increases in the frequency of micronuclei in the oral mucosa cells, urothelial cells, and peripheral blood lymphocytes. ... 

Squamous cells represent the vast majority of cells found in voided urine collected from healthy individuals, which contains very small numbers of transitional (urothelial) epithelial cells [24], an observation confirmed by our spectroscopic studies. For the squamous cells, a large variation in the overall amplitude of the spectra is observed, in accordance with previously discussed results for oral mucosa cells (see Section 5.3.2.1). Absorbance values recorded for the amide I band vary between 0.05 and 0.8 AU for the squamous cells. It is believed that these variations are largely due to deviations in both ceU thickness and the nucleus cytoplasm ratio vnthin the spatial area sampled [5, 20]. 

Oral mucositis is a consequence of the toxic effects of chemotherapeutic agents and irradiation on oral mucosa cells. It is estimated that oral mucositis is a complication in 40% of patients receiving chemotherapy, more than 90% of those irradiated for head and neck cancer. This condition is frequently associated with severe pain and inflammation and can cause malnutrition, systemic infections, and low quality of life, as well as limiting efficiency of the chemotherapy [39]. 

Wannhoff A, Bolck B, Kubler AC, Bloch W, Reuther T. Oxidative and nitrosative stress and apoptosis in oral mucosa cells after ex vivo exposure to lead and benzo[a]pyrene. Toxicol Vitro 2013 27(2) 915-21. 

Figure 5.3 (a) Mean absorption spectra of about 45 dried oral mucosa cells after 1 day (red), 1 week (green), and 1 month (blue), (b) Superposition of the second derivatives of the three traces shown in (a). 

For the initial studies of oral mucosa cells, normal cytological samples were harvested from laboratory volunteers, whereas clinical samples were collected at TMC, as described in Section 5.2.1.1, and immediately inserted into a vial filled with SurePath fixative. Data acquisition was carried out via the PapMap approach as discussed in Section 5.2.3.2 thus, for the first time, thousands of cellular spectra were available for statistical analysis. This large number of cells allowed several ancillary studies, for example, the immediate effects of smoking and over-the-counter medication on the spectra of oral cells, as well as the dependence of spectral characteristics on the site of cell collection. It was found that cells from the top of the tongue, the mouth floor, and the inside of the cheeks had slightly different spectral characteristics, which could be attributed to some different expression of proteins in these cells. Cells from the tongue, for example, had shghtly different... 

Figure 5.8 PCA scores plot of spectra from oral mucosa cells. Blue triangles cells from normal volunteers green crosses morphologically normal cells from patients with oral disease and red squares cells harvested from a cancerous lesion.

Nersesyan, A. Kundi, M. Atefie, K. Schulte-Hermann, R. KnasmueUer, S. Effect of staining procedures on the results of micronucleus assays with exfoliated oral mucosa cells. Cancer Epidemiol, Biomarkers Prev. 2006,15, 1835-1840. 

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