Background: Saliva is a readily accessible secretion that may be used in the diagnosis and screening of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
Methods: Saliva from 5 healthy volunteers and 3 patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas was used for proteomic analysis; we first depleted major proteins by affinity column. Depleted saliva was then divided and analyzed by the following methods: (1) liquid chromatography-tamden mass spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) after in-solution digestion and peptide anion exchange chromatography, (2) peptide separation by chromatography, and (3) sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and in-gel digestion and liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry.