Metabonomic analysis of saliva reveals generalized chronic periodontitis signature

The diagnoses of periodontal diseases (PD) are primarily based on clinical examination and radiographic parameters. In this pilot exploration we want to supply some evidence whether metabonomic profiling of saliva samples can provide a signature of the disease. Saliva samples were analyzed by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) metabonomics from 22 healthy subjects (HS) and 32 patients with clinic and radiographic diagnosis of different PD: Gingivitis (G), Localized Chronic Periodontitis (LCP), Generalized Chronic Periodontitis (GCP), Localized Aggressive Periodontitis (LAP), and Generalized Aggressive Periodontitis (GAP). Pattern recognition analysis of NMR profiles can discriminate GCP patients ( = 21) from HS ( = 22) with an accuracy of 84.1%. Metabolic profiles of GCP patients exhibited higher concentrations of acetate, gamma-aminobutyrate, -butyrate, succinate, trimethylamine, propionate, phenylalanine and valine, and decreased concentrations of pyruvate and -acetyl groups compared with controls. Our results can provide a contribution to the understanding of the biochemical network and pathway in the GCP and other PD, however at this stage the method can not be extended to the general population as a ready-to-use clinical tool, due to the limited cohort recruited and the exploratory nature of this work. Anyway, a further validation of the statistical model on a larger cohort is in progress with the aim to demonstrate the potential impact in clinical practice of our findings.