Sarcoglycan sub-complex in gingival tissue

and ζ-sarcoglycans, is a multimember transmembrane system which provide a mechanosignaling connection from the cytoskeleton to extracellular matrix. Sarcoglycans have been found in many kind of tissues as epithelial tissue where they seem to be involved in cell-cell adhesion using their cadherinlike domain; by that, it was supported that sarcoglycans are involved in different pathological condition of epithelial tissues. So, we performed an immunofluorescence study of the sarcoglycan sub-complex in normal gingival tissues and in gingival tissue of patients affected by periodontitis and scleroderma, two different pathological condition where it is possible to observe an inflammation and alteration of the gingival epithelium. Results obtained from normal samples have shown the presence of a staining pattern for each sarcoglycan in gingival epithelium; pathological samples results, instead, have shown that the entire sarcoglycan sub-complex changes in staining pattern level in dependence of the inflammation degree. All these data suggest a key role of sarcoglycans in maintenance of epithelia architecture by their mechanosignaling functions and they also suggest an involvement of this protein system in inflammation pathways.