Human Saliva Proteome and Transcriptome

This paper tests the hypothesis that salivary proteins and their counterpart mRNAs co-exist in human whole saliva. Global profiling of human saliva proteomes and transcriptomes by mass spectrometry (MS) and expression microarray technologies, respectively, revealed many similarities between saliva proteins and mRNAs. Of the function-known proteins identified in saliva, from 61 to 70% were also found present as mRNA transcripts. For genes not detected at both protein and mRNA levels, we made further efforts to determine if the counterpart is present. Of 19 selected genes detected only at the protein level, the mRNAs of 13 (68%) genes were found in saliva by RT-PCR. In contrast, of many mRNAs detected only by microarrays, their protein products were found in saliva, as reported previously by other investigators. The saliva transcriptome may provide preliminary insights into the boundary of the saliva proteome.