A highly sensitive enzyme‑linked immunosorbent assay allows accurate measurements of brain‑derived neurotrophic factor levels in human saliva.

Akutsu, Fumie, Sugino, Shiro, Watanabe, Mitsuo, Barde, Yves-Alain ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7627-461X and Kojima, Masaaki 2025. A highly sensitive enzyme‑linked immunosorbent assay allows accurate measurements of brain‑derived neurotrophic factor levels in human saliva. F1000Research 14 , 161. 10.12688/f1000research.160304.2

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (557kB)

Abstract

BackgroundHitherto, BDNF levels in humans have been primarily measured in serum and/or plasma where these levels are readily measurable, but primarily reflect the content of BDNF in blood platelets. By contrast, previous attempts to measure BDNF levels in readily accessible human body fluids such as saliva have been complicated by a lack of sensitivity and/or specificity of BDNF ELISAs (see Discussion). Recently, the suitability of a highly sensitive BDNF ELISA assay was validated using mouse plasma and serum where conventional BDNF ELISA fail to detect BDNF. In this report, we demonstrate that BDNF levels in human saliva are extremely low, in the low pg/mL range, yet detectable in all saliva samples tested.MethodsSaliva samples were collected from healthy volunteers by a passive drool method. All samples were aliquoted and immediately frozen to keep at -80°C until use. At the time of use, the samples were thawed, centrifuged to remove any remaining particles and BDNF measurement conducted by using a previously validated BDNF ELISA assay (see below). Recombinant mature BDNF was used as a reference.ResultsThe intra-assay variability was in the range of CV = 1.8 to 4.9%. Saliva samples could be kept frozen at -80°C for 2 months until use for measurements, but more than 4 freeze and thaw cycles caused BDNF losses presumably due to structural change of the antigen. The measurements were not affected by the method of collection provided the samples were diluted at least 2-fold.ConclusionsThe results indicate that human saliva samples collected in a non-invasive fashion can be used as a source of material to try and correlate BDNF levels with human conditions of interest. These results also confirm those of an independent study published recently using the same BDNF ELISA kit to measure BDNF levels in human saliva samples.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Biosciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: Title: cc by, Type: cc by
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 July 2025
Last Modified:	16 Jul 2025 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179859

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item