Apoptotic Biomarkers of Periodontal Disease

Early detection of the progression of periodontitis is difficult because it typically relies on comparisons of clinical measurements made with a calibrated probe and nonstandardized radiographs over time. Both methods detect periodontal breakdown only after it has occurred. Therefore, considerable emphasis has been placed on identifying more specific and sensitive methods to diagnose and detect periodontal disease progression. The overall goal of this project is to determine whether specific apoptosis-associated proteins, specifically fibronectin (FN) fragments, caspase-3, soluble Fas, and soluble Fas ligand, sampled from gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) can be used as markers for periodontal disease progression.