OralOme

: o contributo dos microrganismos

Abstract

In human saliva there are different molecules from diverse sources; secretions from major and minor salivary glands, molecules of plasmatic origin, crevicular fluid, oral mucosa and oral microbiome. All of these components interact and give saliva its properties. Of the existing molecules, proteins have a very important role in defining salivas properties. The identification of all the proteins in the oral cavity will allow the definition of the oral proteome and the functional characterization of said proteins in the different physiological/pathological contexts. A tool that allows the storage, integration and visualization of published data on the proteomics of the oral cavity in a comprehensive way is being developed. This tool is called OralCard, and has the objective of contributing to the clarification of molecular mechanisms of human oral biology, identification of molecular markers useful in the diagnosis of several oral and systemic diseases, and identification of new molecules that can act as therapeutic targets. Starting with an extensive bibliographical revision, this study aims to verify which are the experimentally determined microbial proteinsidentified in samples from the oral cavity, insert them in the OralOme data-base supporting OralCard, and annotate them with published information, hence contributing to the complete definition of the microbial proteome of the oral cavity. From the bibliography reviewed up to April 2012, 1212 experimentally determined proteins of microbial origin were identified, manually annotated and added to OralOme.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Correia (Supervisor) & Nuno Rosa (Co-Supervisor)