Differences on salivary proteome at rest and in response to an acute exercise in men and women: A pilot study.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the differences in salivary proteome at rest and in response to an acute exercise in men and women. For this, unstimulated whole saliva samples in rest and after a bout resistance exercise leading to failure (ELF) of both men and women (n = 5 for each sex) were subjected to isobaric Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) labelling followed by LC-MS/MS. A total of 274 proteins were identified and met the inclusion criteria. 16 proteins were modulated for the interaction sex*exercise, 6 were modulated because of the exercise, and 65 were differentially expressed between men and women at rest. In conclusion, these results indicate sex-related differences in the salivary proteome at rest and after an acute exercise, pointing out possible candidate biomarkers for sports performance and allowing further knowledge of the physiological processes occurring during ELF. SIGNIFICANCE: The present study describes for the first time the changes that occur in salivary proteome detected by TMT-based proteomics in response to an acute exercise and the differences in these changes depending on sex. Of the 274 protein identified, the 87 differentially expressed proteins and their related pathways were discussed, focusing on the sex- and exercise-related differences in the salivary proteome.