THE REDUCING POWER OF HUMAN SALIVA AND ITS COMPONENT SECRETIONS

¹ University of Alabama, Medical Center, Birmingham, Ala.

The reducing power of whole salivas and of parotid, submaxillary, sublingual, and mucosal secretions has been measured by the Folin-Malmros method and reported as apparent glucose. Generally, the parotid and submaxillary secretions have less reducing power than the sublingual and mucosal secretions. The only noticeable effect of stimulation was observed for the parotid gland, which showed a decreased reducing power upon stimulation.

In agreement with the earlier results of Lundqvist, no evidence was found for the presence of any free sugars, although several different methods were tried. The various methods indicate a probable maximum concentration of about 0.5 mg. per 100 c. c.

The reducing substances of the salivary secretions seem to be a heterogeneous mixture of various carbohydrates, proteins, glycoproteins and some small molecular weight materials.

The sensitivity of a number of spray reagents useful for the detection of sugars and hexosamines on paper chromatograms is reported.