Age-related variations of protein carbonyls in human saliva and plasma: is saliva protein carbonyls an alternative biomarker of aging?

Free radical hypothesis which is one of the most acknowledged aging theories was developed into oxidative stress hypothesis. Protein carbonylation is by far one of the most widely used markers of protein oxidation. We studied the role of age and gender in protein carbonyl content of saliva and plasma among 273 Chinese healthy subjects (137 females and 136 males aged between 20 and 79) and discussed the correlation between protein carbonyl content of saliva and plasma. Protein carbonyl content of saliva and plasma were, respectively, 2.391 ± 0.639 and 0.838 ± 0.274 nmol/mg. Variations of saliva and plasma different age groups all reached significant differences in both male and female (all p < 0.05) while both saliva and plasma protein carbonyls were found to be significantly correlated with age (r = 0.6582 and r = 0.5176, all p < 0.001). Gender was discovered to be unrelated to saliva and plasma protein carbonyl levels (all p > 0.05). Saliva and plasma protein carbonyls were positively related (r = 0.4405, p < 0.001). Surprisingly, saliva and plasma protein carbonyls/ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) ratios were proved to be significantly correlated with age (r = 0.7796 and r = 0.6938, all p < 0.001) while saliva protein carbonyls/FRAP ratio and plasma protein carbonyls/FRAP ratio were also correlated (r = 0.5573, p < 0.001). We concluded that saliva protein carbonyls seem to be an alternative biomarker of aging while the mechanisms of protein carbonylation and oxidative stress and the relationship between saliva protein carbonyls and diseases need to be further investigated.