Lead researcher A.N.M. Nazmul-Hossaini will hold an oral presentation on a study titled "Validation of Salivary-Biomarkers for Sjögren's Syndrome Detection in US Population" during the 89th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 40th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research and the 35th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research.

Recently, a panel of discriminatory salivary transcriptomic and proteomic biomarkers were discovered and validated in an European cohort of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) patients. Afterward, the US study was established under the objective of expanding the clinical utility of the salivary biomarkers by evaluation in an independent cohort of US Sjögren's Syndrome patients.

In the study, researchers collected unstimulated whole saliva samples from 30 well-characterized pSS patients, 30 patients with clinically-diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 30 healthy subjects. The saliva levels of 10 pSS mRNA markers were quantified by qRT-PCR. The levels of three salivary pSS protein markers (B2M, SSS and SSB) were quantified by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay. Group differences of expression levels were tested by t-test. A logistic regression model was built and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed to determine the diagnostic capabilities of the respective salivary biomarkers.