Longitudinal evaluation of salivary profile from children with dental caries before and after treatment

Saliva is a biofluid largely used in metabolomics for the assessment of local and systemic diseases. Our group has previously demonstrated the salivary metabolomic signature of children with dental caries (Fidalgo et al. Metabolomics 9(3):657-666, 2013). The aim of the current study was investigation, using NMR spectroscopy, of the changes observed for metabolite markers for caries lesions before and after dental treatment. Saliva from children with and without dental caries before and after treatment was analyzed by NMR. Partial least squared discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) conducted on the spectroscopic data sets showed a clear separation of saliva metabolic profile of children with and without caries, and multilevel PLS-DA demonstrated difference before and after dental treatment. Our results demonstrate that organic acids are associated with disease activity because their reductions were observed after dental treatment. There was a demonstrated reduction here in the levels of acetate, propionate, fatty acid, butyrate and saccharides. We also observed a drop in the level of microorganisms upon dental treatment. The dental treatment therefore modified the properties of the oral cavity, leading to changes in the salivary profiles after treatment.