proteomes Article Downregulation of Salivary Proteins, Protective against Dental Caries, in Type 1 Diabetes Eftychia Pappa 1,* , Konstantinos Vougas 2, Jerome Zoidakis 2 , William Papaioannou 3, Christos Rahiotis 1 and Heleni Vastardis 4 1 Department of Operative Dentistry, School of Dentistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece;
[email protected] 2 Proteomics Laboratory, Biomedical Research Foundation Academy of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece;
[email protected] (K.V.);
[email protected] (J.Z.) 3 Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry, School of Dentistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece;
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[email protected] * Correspondence: effi
[email protected] Abstract: Saliva, an essential oral secretion involved in protecting the oral cavity’s hard and soft tissues, is readily available and straightforward to collect. Recent studies have analyzed the sali- vary proteome in children and adolescents with extensive carious lesions to identify diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. The current study aimed to investigate saliva’s diagnostic ability through proteomics to detect the potential differential expression of proteins specific for the occurrence of carious lesions. For this study, we performed bioinformatics and functional analysis of proteomic datasets, previously examined by our group, from samples of adolescents with regulated and unreg- ulated type 1 diabetes, as they compare with healthy controls. Among the differentially expressed Citation: Pappa, E.; Vougas, K.; proteins relevant to caries pathology, alpha-amylase 2B, beta-defensin 4A, BPI fold containing family Zoidakis, J.; Papaioannou, W.; Rahiotis, C.; Vastardis, H.