SALIVARY TRYPTOPHAN AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO DMF

TURNER and Crowell, ' using a modification of the glyoxylic-sulfuric acid method of Shaw and Mac Farlane2 ' 3 for the estimation of tryptophan, found that the amount of tryptophan or related indole-containing molecules in the saliva showed a definite correlation with the degree of various activity. Stack4 estimated salivary tryptophan by its reaction with p-dimethylamino-benzaldehyde in strongly acid solution and found no correlation between DMF counts and salivary tryptophan. In their work on the putrefaction of salivary proteins, Berg, Burrill, and Fosdick5 measured free tryptophan according to the p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde method of Boyd6 and demonstrated that in-dole is formed very rapidly as a result of the degradation of free tryptophan. Turner and Anders7 have stated that neither the Shaw-Mac Farlane glyoxylic-sulfuric acid method nor the Horn and Jones procedure " used by Stack suffi-ciently differentiate tryptophan from indole or other indole-containing mole-cules (indole-3-acetic acid, tryptamine) when applied to saliva. With the establishment of microbiologic procedures as rapid, accurate tools for the quantitative measurements of amino acids, Kirch, Kesel, O'Don-nell, and Wach9 determined salivary tryptophan according to the method of Baumgarten, Garey, Olsen, Stone, and Boneff,'0 employing Lactobacitlus plan-tarum ATCC 8014. * No correlation between tryptophan in the saliva and caries activity was found. The same authors measured tryptophan in the saliva of persons on a low protein diet " and in studying the influence of ingestion of single amino acids on the level of free amino acids in saliva.'2 Table I sum-marizes some of the results obtained in these investigations