Background: Saliva is an easily available biological material that is not commonly analysed in clinical chemistry, while it could give useful information especially in several oral diseases.
Methods: In this work, the sulphur containing compounds cysteine, cysteinylglycine and glutathione were analysed in saliva of control subjects and periodontopathic subjects by a HPLC method. The detection limit of the method is 0.5, 0.1 and 0.1 micromol/l for cysteine, cysteinylglycine and glutathione, respectively, and it is linear up to 10 mmol/l.
Results: the median values for the control group are 1.2 micromol/l for cysteine and glutathione and 0.4 micromol/l for cysteinylglycine while those of periodontopathic patients are significantly increased (4.4, 2.1 and 11.0 micromol/l for cysteine, cysteinylglycine and glutathione, respectively).