Researchers led by the University of California, Los Angeles' David Wong report their transcriptome profiling of RNA isolated from saliva in Clinical Chemistry. Using the SOLiD system, the researchers analyzed RNA from cell-free saliva and whole saliva from healthy volunteers, finding that about a quarter of the cell-free saliva reads aligned to the human genome, while nearly a third aligned to the Human Oral Microbiome Database. "A single measurement provided RNA sequence information of gene transcript abundance for both coding and noncoding RNAs and identified sequences from [more than] 400 different microbial species within a single sample," the researchers write, adding that "the high degree of sequence alignment to annotated exons and introns for each of the respective reference genomes, with sequence coverage spanning the full length of the genes, provides strong evidence that the salivary transcriptome is a complex RNA network."

Also in Clinical Chemistry, French researchers evaluate the use of serum S100B as a biomarker of mild traumatic brain injury in children. They examined the levels of serum S100B in 446 children and saw "a linear increase in serum S100B concentration according to the severity of" brain injury. The researchers add that "after validation in a multicenter study that includes a high number of cases with abnormal CCT and bad CE, this determination could avoid unnecessary irradiation, produce hospital cost savings, and reduce the duration of mTBI management in pediatric emergency departments."