Childhood Allergy Disease, Early Diagnosis, and the Potential of Salivary Protein Biomarkers

Figure 4

Scheme describing the approximate time course of different salivary proteins and peptides [48]. A function of age is the sum of extracted ion chromatogram (XIC) peak regions of all members belonging to the same family of proteins/peptides that are grouped based on the locus. A logarithmic scale was used in the abscissa axis to better highlight major changes in preterm newborns during the first months of life, which corresponds to the last months of fetal development, and those that occur immediately after the normal term of delivery and in the first years of life. Dashed lines indicate the age range in which the proteins were detected in at least one baby. The highest limit of this range corresponds to the age at which all saliva of the babies, even in small amounts, displayed the protein in the chromatographic profile.