Association between Antimicrobial Peptide Histatin 5 Levels and Prevalence of Candida in Saliva of Patients with Down Syndrome

There are no studies on colonization and micropeptides of saliva in any patient. Therefore, we studied the effects of the salivary antimicrobial peptide histatin 5 on oral fungal colonization; subjects were subdivided into Down syndrome (D) and normal (N) groups by age: N-1 and D-1, age 40 years. Histatin 5 concentration in saliva was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Oral species were identified using CHROMagar . colonization was significantly enhanced in the D-1 and D-2 groups compared to the N-1 and N-2 groups. There was no predominant difference in salivary histatin 5 concentration between the D-1 and N-1 groups, but it was significantly lower in the D-2 group than in the N-2 group. Only in the N-2 group was there a correlation between the concentration of histatin 5 and total protein, while no correlation was found in the other groups. In elderly patients with Down syndrome, the decrease in histatin 5 shown in this study may lead to oral colony formation. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that a deficiency of the antimicrobial peptide histatin 5 could possibly induce oral infection in DS.