The current status and future prospects of the salivary proteome

Abstract

Saliva performs many biological functions that are instrumental in maintaining oral health. Digestive enzymes, such as alpha-amylase and antimicrobial proteins, such as lysozyme and cystatin, are present at high concentrations in human saliva. It is a readily available atraumatic body fluid, useful in the diagnosis of disease, aging and oral health. Large scale analysis of salivary proteins is important for biomarker discovery. However, the abundance of some salivary proteins and contamination with proteins from food and mouth bacteria obscures identification of medium and low copy salivary proteins. In this review, we summarize current knowledge of the salivary proteome using mass spectrometry based technologies. ©2009 The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.