Autophagy and Hsp70 activation alleviate oral epithelial cell death induced by food-derived hypertonicity

Stable intracellular and intercellular osmolarity is vital for all physiological processes. Although it is the first organ that receives food, the osmolarity around the mouth epithelium has never been systematically investigated. We found that oral epithelial cells are a population of ignored cells routinely exposed to hypertonic environments mainly composed of saline, glucose, etc. in vivo after chewing food. By using cultured oral epithelial...