Salivary proteome signatures in the early and middle stages of human pregnancy with term birth outcome

Present prospective study is designed to find changes in salivary protein expressions from early to middle phase of term pregnancy. To date, a comprehensive characterization of the longitudinal salivary proteome in pregnancy has not been performed, and here first time we establish an expressional trajectory for modulated proteins in pregnancy. The label free proteomics (SWATH-MS) was performed with maternal saliva (N=20) at 6-13, 18-21, and 26-29 weeks of gestation. The expression levels of 65 proteins were found to change significantly with gestational age and distributed into two distinct clusters with a unique expression trajectory. Our result highlighted the role of proteins in neutrophil degranulation, antimicrobial peptide function, regulation of TLR by an endogenous ligand, platelet function regulation, and glucose metabolism. Furthermore, Protein-protein interaction (PPI) and network analysis identified 35 proteins which majorly involved these pregnancy-related biological processes.  Out of these 35 proteins, the verification of 12 proteins was performed using targeted mass spectrometry (MRM-MS) in a separate subset of saliva (N=14). The MRM results of 12 selected proteins confirmed a similar expression pattern as in SWATH-MS analysis. Overall, this study provides the background knowledge for comparative analysis between term birth and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

For full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64483-6