Most people worldwide suffer from dental caries. Only a small part of the population is caries-resistant and the reason for this resistance in unknown. Only a few studies compared the saliva pro-tein composition of persons with carious teeth and persons ith no caries. Our study is the first to relate proteomic analysis of the caries aetiology with gender. In this study, we compared the differences in the abundances of proteins in the saliva between caries-resistant and caries-susceptible females and males by nano-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spec-trometry (Label-Free Quantitative Proteomics). Our results demonstrate that the observed differences in the protein levels might have an influence on anti-caries resistance. A total of 19 potential markers of tooth caries were found, for example proteins S100A8 and annexin A1 with higher expression in the caries-susceptible group in comparison with the caries-free group and mucin-5B, lactoferrin, lysozyme C with higher expression in the caries-free group in
comparison with the caries-susceptible group. The presented study is the first complex proteomic and gender project where the saliva protein content of caries-free and caries-susceptible persons were compared by label-free MS. The newly detected potential protein markers of dental caries can be a good basis for further research and for possible future therapeutic use. and Corresponding author: Lucie Kulhavá
Saliva contains possible biomarkers that are associated with dental caries. The present study aimed to analyse differences in the abundance of proteins in the saliva between caries-positive (CP; N = 15) and caries-free (CF; N = 12) males and to compare differences in the abundance of proteins between two saliva sample fractions (supernatant and pellet). We found 14 differently significantly expressed proteins in the CF group when comparing the supernatant fractions of the CP and CF groups, and three proteins in the pellet fractions had significantly higher expression in the CP group. Our results indicate very specific protein compositions of the saliva in relation to dental caries resistance (the saliva of the CP group mainly contained pellet proteins and the saliva of the CF group mainly contained supernatant proteins). This was the first time that the saliva pellet fraction was analysed in relation to the dental caries status. We detected specific calcium-binding proteins that could have decalcified enamel in the saliva pellet of the CP group. We also observed significantly up-regulated immune proteins in the saliva supernatant of the CF group that could play an important role in the caries prevention. The particular protein compositions of the saliva pellet and supernatant in the groups with different susceptibilities to tooth decay is a promising finding for future research.