Asta Tvarijonaviciute - The Present and Future of a Unique Sample for Diagnosis

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In the past, saliva was considered just as a component of the digestive process with a main role of initiating the breakdown of lipids and starches. However, during the last years, the view of saliva in biological sciences has changed dramatically; it was shown to contain a variety of molecular and bacterial compounds that can change in local and systemic pathologies. Furthermore, a number of proteins that are present in saliva are absent in plasma, representing an opportunity to identify new molecular biomarkers of different conditions such as disease diagnosis and treatment monitoring. Nevertheless, currently, blood is the sample most frequently used for health assessment in human and veterinary medicine. However, blood sampling is physically intrusive and technically demanding. In contrast, the use of saliva supposes a reduction of stress associated with the sampling due to its noninvasive nature and a decrease in costs because there is no need for a specialized personal for the sampling. In the particular case of elderly persons, children and animals, the samplings could be performed at home without the need to go to the clinic or hospital to avoid stressful situations. However, the use of saliva in routine practice is still limited. This is mainly due tothe lack of knowledge. Therefore, in order to explore the diagnostic potential of this biofluid, existing literature related to salivary biomarkers in both humans and animals were gathered together, giving place to the current form of this book. The chapters of it could be grouped into three: (1)generalities, which describe anatomy and physiology of salivary glands (Chap.).

It is important to highlight that each of the chapters was integrated not only by the knowledge existing in human medicine but also for animals. This was performed in agreement with One Health approach, stating that integration of knowledge leads to higher quality or larger quantity of relevant information, leading to more economically efficient research that drives to more accurate conclusions.

We, the editors, would like to thank all authors who agreed to participate in this project, making the production of this book possible. Also, we are grateful to Dr. Gonzalo Cordova for his help in every moment and for his valuable advices.

This book would not be possible without the financial support given by the Seneca Foundation of Murcia Region through projects 20649/JLI/18 and 19894/GERM/15, the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain through the postdoctoral programme Ramon y Cajal and the project AGL2016-79096-R, and COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action 16215 the European network for the promotion of portable, affordable and simple analytical platforms (PortASAP). Thanks are also due to the FCT-Portuguese Science Foundation under the project UID/AGR/00115/2013 and the research contract CEEIND to Elsa Lamy.