Exploring Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Salivary Biomarkers in Cancer—2nd Edition

A special issue of Metabolites (ISSN 2218-1989). This special issue belongs to the section "Endocrinology and Clinical Metabolic Research".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 6413

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Biochemistry Research Laboratory, Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk, Russia
Interests: salivary biomarkers; lung cancer; breast cancer; diagnosis; prognosis
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Guest Editor
Leicester School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Interests: chemical pathology; clinical chemistry; NMR-based metabolomics; disease diagnosis and prognostic monitoring; metabolic pathway analysis; bioinorganic chemistry; drug design; development and synthesis; artificial intelligence; machine learning; research ethics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, the attention of researchers to the study of human saliva as a biofluid with unique properties and diagnostic capabilities has increased. Indeed, a new term, “salivaomics”, has been proposed, which brings together knowledge about various components in saliva, including the genome, epigenome, transcript, proteome, metabolome, and microbiome. This has led to the development of new technologies and validation of a wide range of salivary biomarkers that will soon render saliva a valuable tool in clinical practice. Particular attention is paid to the search for new biomarkers and combinations of salivary biomarkers for the early diagnosis of cancer.

Currently, the first steps are being taken towards evaluating the role of salivary biomarkers in the prognostic monitoring of cancer conditions. However, additional research investigations are required for the successful transfer of NMR-based salivary metabolomics to actual clinical use to provide diagnostic benefits for clinicians, researchers, and patients alike.

The second edition of this Special Issue of Metabolites, which follows the previous edition (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/metabolites/special_issues/salivary_biomarkers_cancer), is planned to include current research on the use of salivary biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. Its major focus is to evaluate the future perspectives of reported observations acquired from metabolomics studies that focused on evaluations of the diagnosis and prognostic tracking of salivary biomarkers for both oral and non-oral (systemic) cancers, the former including head and neck cancer, and oral cavity squamous cell and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas, and the latter featuring head and squamous cell, lung, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers, among others.

Dr. Lyudmila Bel'skaya
Prof. Dr. Martin Grootveld
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • salivary biomarkers
  • metabolomics
  • salivaomics
  • diagnosis
  • prognosis
  • cancer

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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25 pages, 2973 KiB  
Article
Detection and Quantification of Ammonia as the Ammonium Cation in Human Saliva by 1H NMR: A Promising Probe for Health Status Monitoring, with Special Reference to Cancer
by Mohammed Bhogadia, Mark Edgar, Kayleigh Hunwin, Georgina Page and Martin Grootveld
Metabolites 2023, 13(7), 792; https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo13070792 - 26 Jun 2023
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3353
Abstract
Ammonia (NH3) has been shown to be a key biomarker for a wide variety of diseases, such as hepatic and chronic kidney diseases (CKD), and cancers. It also has relevance to the oral health research area, and, hence, its determination in [...] Read more.
Ammonia (NH3) has been shown to be a key biomarker for a wide variety of diseases, such as hepatic and chronic kidney diseases (CKD), and cancers. It also has relevance to the oral health research area, and, hence, its determination in appropriate biofluids and tissues is of much importance. However, since it contains exchangeable >N-H protons, its analysis via 1H NMR spectroscopy, which is a widely employed technique in untargeted metabolomic studies, is rendered complicated. In this study, we focused on the 1H NMR analysis of this biomarker in less invasively collected human saliva samples, and we successfully identified and quantified it as ammonium cation (NH4+) in post-collection acidulated forms of this biofluid using both the standard calibration curve and standard addition method (SAM) approaches. For this purpose, n = 27 whole mouth saliva (WMS) samples were provided by healthy human participants, and all donors were required to follow a fasting/oral environment abstention period of 8 h prior to collection. Following acidification (pH 2.00), diluted WMS supernatant samples treated with 10% (v/v) D2O underwent 1H NMR analysis (600 MHz). The acquired results demonstrated that NH4+ can be reliably determined in these supernatants via integration of the central line of its characteristic 1:1:1 intensity triplet resonance (complete spectral range δ = 6.97–7.21 ppm). Experiments performed also demonstrated that any urease-catalysed NH3 generation occurring post-sampling in WMS samples did not affect the results acquired during the usual timespan of laboratory processing required prior to analysis. Further experiments demonstrated that oral mouth-rinsing episodes conducted prior to sample collection, as reported in previous studies, gave rise to major decreases in salivary NH4+ levels thereafter, which renormalised to only 50–60% of their basal control concentrations at the 180-min post-rinsing time point. Therefore, the WMS sample collection method employed significantly affected the absolute levels of this analyte. The LLOD was 60 μmol/L with 128 scans. The mean ± SD salivary NH4+ concentration of WMS supernatants was 11.4 ± 4.5 mmol/L. The potential extension of these analytical strategies to the screening of other metabolites with exchangeable 1H nuclei is discussed, as is their relevance to the monitoring of human disorders involving the excessive generation and/or uptake of cellular/tissue material, or altered homeostasis, in NH3. Full article
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Review

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15 pages, 326 KiB  
Review
Diagnostic Value of Salivary Amino Acid Levels in Cancer
by Lyudmila V. Bel’skaya, Elena A. Sarf and Alexandra I. Loginova
Metabolites 2023, 13(8), 950; https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo13080950 - 15 Aug 2023
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2203
Abstract
This review analyzed 21 scientific papers on the determination of amino acids in various types of cancer in saliva. Most of the studies are on oral cancer (8/21), breast cancer (4/21), gastric cancer (3/21), lung cancer (2/21), glioblastoma (2/21) and one study on [...] Read more.
This review analyzed 21 scientific papers on the determination of amino acids in various types of cancer in saliva. Most of the studies are on oral cancer (8/21), breast cancer (4/21), gastric cancer (3/21), lung cancer (2/21), glioblastoma (2/21) and one study on colorectal, pancreatic, thyroid and liver cancer. The amino acids alanine, valine, phenylalanine, leucine and isoleucine play a leading role in the diagnosis of cancer via the saliva. In an independent version, amino acids are rarely used; the authors combine either amino acids with each other or with other metabolites, which makes it possible to obtain high values of sensitivity and specificity. Nevertheless, a logical and complete substantiation of the changes in saliva occurring in cancer, including changes in salivary amino acid levels, has not yet been formed, which makes it important to continue research in this direction. Full article
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