Abstract: Objective: To isolate P-cadherin positive and negative oral gingival epithelial cells, and to compare the biological characteristics with junctional epithelial cells.  Methods: Human oral gingival epithelial cells and junctional epithelial cells were cultured. P-cadherin positive and negative cells were isolated from oral gingival epithelial cells. The cellular adhesion, proliferation and migration were measured and compared. Results: The P-cadherin positive cells accounted for 20% of oral gingival epithelial cells. Compared with juctional epithelial cells, P-cadherin positive oral gingival epithelial cells showed similar properties of adhesion and migration, and stronger proliferation ability (0.72±0.06 vs. 0.60±0.05, P<0.05). P-cadherin negative oral gingival epithelial cells showed weaker ability of adhesion (48%±6% vs. 87%±11%, P<0.05), proliferation (0.36±0.04 vs. 0.60±0.05, P<0.05) and migration (10.3±2.7 vs. 23.4±4.8, P<0.05). Conclusion: P-cadherin positive oral gingival epithelial cells showed some similar but different biological characteristics, compared with juctional epithelial cells, which suggested that during the process of transforming oral gingival epithelial cells into juctional epithelial cells, complex gene and protein changes were involved instead of simply cellular migration.

Key words: Gingiva, Epithelial cells, Cell adhesion, Cell proliferation, Cell movement