Expression of intermediate filaments in human tongue mucosa.

The specific inflammatory lesions of the human tongue, namely fissured tongue and geographic tongue, have been found to differ clinically and histologically from each other and from healthy appearing tongue (control). In this study we describe expression of cytokeratin, vimentin and desmin intermediate filaments in these tongue forms. The most important findings were seen in fissured tongue; strong positive staining of cytokeratin proteins indicate the incomplete keratinization of the epithelium, vimentin staining was irregular indicating subepithelial edema and desmin expression showed the destruction of the uppermost muscle cells. The corresponding changes of geographic tongue were similar but slight when compared with those of fissured tongue. Different immunohistochemical methods can supplement the information obtained from tongue biopsies by conventional methods and lead to a better understanding of the morphology of the tongue mucosa.