Urine, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid are the primary biofluids for metabolic fingerprinting of higher level organisms. Saliva is mentioned in metabonomic reviews as an alternative biofluid but there are few publications to demonstrate its possible applications. We recognize saliva as an attractive alternative-biomaterial that is specific and easy-to-access. It can reliably reflect an organism's overall condition and has the potential to provide insight into different physiological and pathological states. Our pioneering research program is using NMR and horse saliva to test our perspective that the alternative biomaterial can be used for early diagnosis of various conditions including onset of infectious disease. The focus is on parallel metabolic analyses of the full saliva and low molecular weight (LMW) extracts. A well documented set of twelve weanlings have allowed us since September of 2004 to assess the various technical details of collecting, handling, and analyzing saliva.
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Back to The 37th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (May 22-25, 2005)