title: Understanding the human salivary metabolome.
abstract: Saliva is a readily accessible biofluid that is important for the overall health, aiding in the chewing, swallowing, and tasting of food as well as the regulation mouth flora. As a first step to determining and understanding the human saliva metabolome, we have measured salivary metabolite concentrations under a variety of conditions in a healthy population with reasonably good oral hygiene. Using (1)H NMR spectroscopy, metabolite concentrations were measured in resting (basal) and stimulated saliva from the same subject and compared in a cohort of healthy male non-smoking subjects (n = 62). Almost all metabolites were higher in the unstimulated saliva when compared to the stimulated saliva. Comparison of the salivary metabolite profile of male smokers and non-smokers (n = 46) revealed citrate, lactate, pyruvate, and sucrose to be higher and formate to be lower in concentration in smokers compared with non-smokers (p < 0.05). Gender differences were also investigated (n = 40), and acetate, formate, glycine, lactate, methanol, propionate, propylene glycol, pyruvate, succinate, and taurine were significantly higher in concentration in male saliva compared to female saliva (p < 0.05). These results show that differences between male and female, stimulated and unstimulated, as well as smoking status may be observed in the salivary metabolome.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Ienaka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stretch
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Barnaby
authors.forename: Kriti
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bhatnager
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rankin
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Aalim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weljie
authors.forename: Naresh
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jha
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Slupsky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055442:Metabolome; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D019906:Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking