Machine learning-based analysis of oral rinse samples to identify candidate proteomic signatures for severe...

This pilot study investigated whether candidate protein signatures from oral rinse samples can distinguish patients with severe periodontitis (stage III/IV) and its subtypes, generalized and localized periodontitis, from non-periodontitis controls. Participants rinsed with phosphate-buffered saline, and samples were analyzed using a Proximity Extension Assay targeting 92 inflammatory and 92 immuno-oncology proteins. A machine learning approach using repeated nested cross-validation and SHAP was implemented to identify protein signatures. The study included 38 patients (18 with localized periodontitis and 20 with generalized periodontitis) and 16 controls. After data preprocessing, 54 samples and 141 proteins were retained. Proteins Gal-1, HGF, TNFSF14, CD27, and ARG1 distinguished periodontitis from controls (ROC-AUC = 0.85, 95% CI 0.82, 0.87). For generalized periodontitis, we found a protein signature including TNFSF14, Gal-1, STAMBP, MUC-16, S100A12, HGF, CASP-8, CD27, LAP TGF-β1, TNFRSF9, and uPA (ROC-AUC = 0.92, 95% CI 0.90, 0.94). For localized periodontitis, we identified ARG1 (ROC-AUC = 0.72, 95% CI 0.68, 0.76). No proteomic signature distinguishing generalized periodontitis from localized periodontitis was identified. This pilot study indicated that oral rinses are suitable for proteomic profiling, and there was a putative protein signature that could differentiate periodontitis, generalized periodontitis, and localized periodontitis from controls. These findings warrant validation in larger independent cohorts, including a clearly defined gingivitis group, before real-world non-invasive screening applications can be considered.