Dialysis unmasks the fungicidal properties of glandular salivary secretions.

Several salivary proteins exhibit fungicidal activity against the opportunistic oral pathogen Candida albicans when they are tested as pure proteins in vitro. However, salivary secretions that are examined by the same assays either lack or exhibit very low candidacidal activity. Since ionic strength is known to have an inhibitory effect on the fungicidal activities of some proteins, parotid secretion was subjected to dialysis with membranes having molecular weight cutoffs (MWCOs) of 500, 1000, 10000, and 25000.

Human salivary gland-specific daily variations in histatin concentrations determined by a novel quantitation technique.

Histatins constitute a distinct family of human salivary antimicrobial peptides, of which histatins 1, 3 and 5 are the most abundant. To evaluate salivary gland-specific differences in histatin secretion, we used the recently developed histatin-zinc precipitation method to quantify histatins and to assess daily variations in secretions. Stimulated pure secretions from parotid glands (HPS) and submandibular/sublingual glands (SMSL) were collected from 10 different subjects at four different times of the day (9:35 a.