Analysis of the salivary proteome in gingivitis patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Gingivitis is a disease that is characterized by inflammation of the gingival tissue, which can progress to periodontitis and tooth loss. Although many studies have attempted to identify salivary proteins that are associated with the disease, this is the first study to use a proteomic approach to analyze and compare the proteomic profile of whole saliva from gingivitis patients and healthy controls. MATERIAL AND METHOD: To analyze the saliva proteome, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and liquid chromatography were used, followed by mass spectrometry. RESULTS: The analyses showed that gingival inflammation was associated with increased amounts of blood proteins (serum albumin and hemoglobin), immunoglobulin peptides and keratins. In the control group, salivary cystatins, which were detected using capillary Liquid Chromatography on line to electrospray ionization Quadrupole Time-of-flight mass spectrometry, appeared to be more abundant. CONCLUSION: This approach provides novel insight into profiles of the salivary proteome during gingival inflammation, which may contribute to improvements in diagnosis.

The effect of incubation temperature on the specificity of the BANA (N-benzoyl-DL-arginine-naphthylamide) test.

The hydrolysis of BANA by subgingival plaque samples is associated with the presence of either Treponema denticola, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and/or Bacteroides forsythus. A protocol in which pure cultures were incubated for 15 min at 55 degrees C detected about 5 x 10(5) CFU of P. gingivalis and 1 x 10(6) CFU of T. denticola. Clinical studies indicated that the BANA test in this configuration will detect about 10(4) organisms in vivo as compared with the 10(5) to 10(6) organisms found with in vitro grown cells. The BANA test can be made less sensitive by decreasing the time and/or temperature of incubation, which could improve the specificity of the test. In the present study we determined the incubation parameters that would give optimal specificity when the plaque samples were removed from sites of gingival health. Twenty-six approximal plaque samples were taken from each of 90 clinically healthy subjects and incubated with the BANA substrate on PerioScan cards (Oral-B Laboratories) for 5 and 15 min at 35 degrees, 45 degrees, and 55 degrees C. Subjects were randomly assigned to the various temperatures. Wooden toothpicks were inserted interproximally in all sites anterior to distal of the first molars and then each side of the toothpick was wiped onto the PerioScan card. The specificity of the BANA test relative to clinical health was 96% when the cards were incubated for 5 min at 35 degrees C, but decreased to 50-70% when the cards were incubated for 15 min at 35 degrees C or for 5 and 15 min at 45 degrees C and 55 degrees C.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Pre- and post-natal protein deficiency in albino rats. I. Weight progression analysis.

Alterations in periodontal tissue were analyzed histologically in rats who had received a protein-deficient diet during intra-uterine life due to inadequate nutrition of the mothers and during the post-natal period due to the continuity of poor nutrition. The animals were weighed at sacrifice: 0, 1, 4, 11, 17, 21, 42, 50 and 105 days. Histological data comparing the undernourished and control groups will be the objective of a future publication. This first part reports the statistical analysis of weight progression of the two groups, concerning not only the mean weight, but also the individual weight of each animal at the various sacrifice periods. Weight progression was gradual and proportional in each group, despite the fact that the control group had accentuated weight gain, deviating, with time, from the weight of the undernourished group of the same age.

Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans in Brazilian insulin-dependent individuals with diabetes mellitus.

The prevalence of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans (Aa) in subgingival plaque specimens from 26 insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus patients, 11-25 years of age, was determined between January 1987 and December 1989. One hundred and thirty subgingival plaque samples were collected with sterile periodontal curettes. The specimens were weighted, diluted, inoculated on trypticase-soy-serum-bacitracin-vancomycin agar medium (TSBV) and incubated under microacrophilic conditions. Aa was isolated from 2.3% of healthy periodontal areas in these patients, while the microorganism was found in 12.5% of the sites with gingivitis and in 2.6% of the periodontal pockets examined. Although biochemical tests used for the characterization of Aa strains showed homogeneous results, different biotypes were isolated from one or more periodontal sites in the same patient.