The potentiality of salivary peptide biomarkers for screening patients with periodontal diseases by mass spectrometry

Certain candidate biomarkers for periodontal diseases in saliva, gingival crevicular fluid (GCF), and serum were reported by some previous studies, but little evidence was obtained in their potentiality for screening patients with periodontal diseases. Unstimulated whole saliva, GCF, and serum samples, which were collected from 17 patients with chronic periodontitis, 17 with gingivitis, and 16 periodontally healthy persons as control, were analysed by MALDI-TOF MS. Cluster analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis were carried out to evaluate the ability of candidate peptides to distinguish patients with periodontal diseases from healthy subjects. Nano-LC/ESI-MS/MS was performed to identify possible proteins that these peptides might derive from. Most of the differentially expressed peptides exhibited an increase in participants with chronic periodontitis and gingivitis compared with healthy controls. Cluster analysis showed a good clustering capacity between chronic periodontitis and healthy controls. Most AUCs for differentially expressed peptides were >0.7, whereas some peptides from GCF and serum even exhibited AUCs of 0.9–1.0. Some peptides in saliva, GCF, and serum act as biomarkers for chronic periodontitis and gingivitis, which have certain potentiality for screening patients with periodontal diseases and distinguishing them from healthy individuals in a comparatively large population by mass spectrometry. •MALDI-TOF MS was employed to detect peptide biomarkers in saliva, GCF and serum.•Salivary, GCF and serum peptides can distinguish individuals with periodontal diseases.•Most peptide biomarkers showed an increase in patients with periodontal diseases.