Development of a salivary blood contamination nano-bio-chip test targeting transferrin - a putative biomarker of periodontitis

With the recent development of salivary biomarker diagnostic tests for clinical settings, the understanding of protein contribution measurements of serum to saliva is crucial for accurate clinical analyses. In this study, the development of a nano-bio-chip (NBC) immunoassay that quantifies transferrin in saliva, a protein found in significantly higher concentrations in the serum than saliva, was established. This transferrin NBC assay demonstrates a high level of precision, accuracy, and sensitivity and correlates well with the current gold standard tests, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In addition, data from the transferrin NBC test indicate that individuals with periodontal disease exhibit a higher salivary concentration of transferrin than healthy controls. Therefore, transferrin, as measured by the NBC-relevant test, may be useful as a biomarker of periodontal disease and as a protein indicator of the level of serum contribution to salivary measurements.