Salivary concentration of free LL-37 in edentulism, chronic periodontitis and healthy periodontium

Objective: The antimicrobial peptide LL-37, a component of innate immunity, has an important role in maintaining oral health. This study aimed to investigate the concentration of free LL-37 in whole saliva of periodontally healthy, edentulous and chronic periodontitis subjects. Design: Unstimulated whole saliva was sampled from 154 subjects (76 periodontally healthy, 20 edentulous, and 58 subjects with chronic periodontitis). All participants were in good general health. The salivary LL-37 was determined by ELISA. Results: The median salivary concentrations of free LL-37 were 30.5, 22.5, and 1.8 ng/ml for the healthy, the chronic periodontitis and the edentulous group, respectively. The differences in concentration between the edentulous and the others were statistically significant (Mann-Whitney test, p < 0.001). In the healthy subjects, women displayed significantly higher peptide concentrations compared to men (Mann-Whitney test, p < 0.05). The intra-subject variation in LL-37 concentration was wider for the healthy (range 0.75-285 ng/ml) and chronic periodontitis patients (range 1-207 ng/ml) than for the edentulous subjects (range 0.15-4.4 ng/ml). Conclusions: The present findings show that edentulism correlates with a substantial decrease in salivary levels of free LL-37, thus indicating the considerable contribution of the gingival tissues in the secretion of the peptide in the oral environment. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.