Profiling gingival crevicular fluid from smoking and non-smoking chronic periodontitis patients.

BACKGROUND: Smoking is a major risk factor for the development and progression of chronic periodontitis (CP). Gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) derived from these patients contains many proteins that could serve as important diagnostic indicators. A protein chip technology called Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization-Time of Flight-Mass Spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) has recently been developed to facilitate protein profiling of complex biological mixtures. The hypothesis to be tested was SELDI-TOF-MS could distinguish between GCF of CP patients by smoking status and pocket depth.

METHODS: GCF samples collected before treatment from sixteen CP patients (eight smokers and eight non-smokers) at both shallow and deep sites were evaluated by SELDI-TOF-MS. Spectral fingerprints were constructed for both cohorts and analyzed by a two-way ANOVA according to smoking status and pocket depth. Significance threshold was set at p < 0.05. Mean molecular weight (MW) peaks and intensities were also analyzed.

RESULTS: The spectral fingerprints were significantly different between the two cohorts when analyzed by ANOVA according to smoking status (p < 0.0001) but not pocket depth (p = 0.9876). Also, the mean intensity of many individual MW peaks were determined to be significantly different between the two cohorts. Several peaks ranging in MW from 11-14 kDa were only detected in the GCF obtained from smokers.

CONCLUSIONS: This study has demonstrated that profiling of GCF by SELDI-TOF-MS can distinguish between CP smokers and non-smokers. Moreover, over-expressed proteins in GCF from smokers may serve as biomarkers for this high risk patient population.