Gingival Tissue Metabolites as Biomarkers of Periodontal Disease: a Pilot Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThe periodontal probe is considered the instrument of choice to diagnose periodontitis. The probe is capable of assessing only past history of periodontal disease but unable to predict disease initiation or progression of existing disease. Metabolite composition of gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) may represent the pathobiology of periodontitis. However, whether the GCF metabolites represent what really occurs in the gingival tissue during periodontal disease have not been investigated yet. This cross-sectional pilot study aims at testing the correlation between the metabolites identified in gingival tissues and the ones revealed in GCFs in healthy sites and in periodontitis sites after S/RP. MATERIAL AND METHODSTwenty-eight subjects were recruited in this study. Nine subjects had periodontal disease with stage III or IV (periodontitis subjects) and had been treated with S/RP, whereas 7 had a healthy periodontium (non-periodontitis subjects). Gingival biopsies were harvested from each subject and analyzed through Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technology. GCF samples were collected from 21 healthy sites from 5 non-periodontitis subjects and 21 post-S/RP diseased sites from 7 periodontitis subjects before analysis through NMR. RESULTSA total of 27 metabolites could be identified and quantified in all samples. Comparing the changes of metabolites in healthy and post-S/RP periodontitis sites between the gingival samples and the GCF data, a Spearman’s correlation test demonstrated a positive correlation (r=+0.41) approaching statistical significance (p-value=0.07). CONCLUSIONSThe changes of metabolites in the GCF are positively correlated with the ones in the gingival tissue when comparing healthy and post-SRP periodontitis sites.