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Review
. 2020 May 9;10(5):290.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics10050290.

Saliva-Friend and Foe in the COVID-19 Outbreak

Pingping Han  1 , Sašo Ivanovski  1
Affiliations
Review

Saliva-Friend and Foe in the COVID-19 Outbreak

Pingping Han et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a global ongoing pandemic. Timely, accurate and non-invasive SARS-CoV-2 detection in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, as well as determination of their immune status, will facilitate effective large-scale pandemic control measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Saliva is a biofluid whose anatomical source and location is of particularly strategic relevance to COVID-19 transmission and monitoring. This review focuses on the role of saliva as both a foe (a common mode of viral transmission via salivary droplets and potentially aerosols) and a friend (as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for viral detection and immune status surveillance) in combating COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; salivary bioaerosols transmission; salivary diagnostics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic showing the SARS-CoV-2 virus structure, with spike (S), membrane (M), envelope (E), and nucleocapsid (N) proteins and single-stranded RNA genome.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic diagram of saliva components, including cells, mitochondrial DNA, DNA, protein/antibody, bacteria, miRNA, extracellular vesicles (EVs, from multiple oral cavity resident species), and SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Saliva as a friend and foe in the fight against COVID-19. Saliva has a role in human-to-human transmission via bioaerosols and droplets. Salivary proteins and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, viral particles, EVs, and infected host cells can be potential diagnostic, prognostic, and COVID immunity monitoring biomarkers, for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. EVs: extracellular vesicles; ELISA: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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