Anticipatinga succulent meal, we begin to salivate. This complex mixture of over 200proteins helps us digest our food. But Menno Oudhoff, a graduate student at theAmsterdam Academic Center for Dentistry, found another purpose for saliva inlooking at the oral epithelial cells that line the mouth. It closes wounds.
It isknown that rodents lick each other's wounds and that may speed up the healingprocess. But rat saliva, which contains high levels of growth hormones, is verydifferent from what we produce. So Oudhoff collected saliva from healthymembers of his lab.
Oralepithelial cells were grown in a thin layer on a dish. Some were scratched awayto simulate a wound. Oudhoff then added saliva and the "wound" closedup.
Butnot all saliva works the same.Somepeople's saliva closed wounds more effectively than others. Oudhoff says notonly is there a huge variation in saliva between people, but "also duringthe day, you have a different secretion rate -- when you sleep you hardly haveany saliva."
Oudhoffdetermined that the active compound in human saliva wound closure is histatin,a known antifungal. This is present in humans and a couple of primate species,but not rodents.
Sinceour mouths are filled with bacteria, some pathogenic, Oudhoff says thatwound-closing compounds like histatins may protect us from getting infectionswhen we get a cut in our mouth. Still, without further study Oudhoff does notsuggest people start licking their wounds.
Thiswork was published online this month by .