Immunohistochemical Expression of BCl2 Oncoprotein in Varying Histological Grades of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Oral cancer has been rising in alarming numbers in the world which is anticipated to escalate at 70% by 2030. Although a lot of factors are responsible for the disease, genetics, and gene mutations play a major role in uncontrolled proliferation. Another major factor is apoptosis which is programmed cell death. Apoptosis generally happens in two pathways Extrinsic pathway which involves trans-membrane receptor-mediated interaction and by Intrinsic pathway which is a mitochondrial-initiated event. There are Pro-apoptotic genes that support apoptosis like Caspases, TNF, and P53 families, and Anti-apoptotic genes like BCL-2 which stop the programmed cell death leading to cellular proliferation and tumor progression. This study was done to find the role of the anti-apoptotic protein BCL2 in varying histological grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma by immunohistochemistry.