HUMAN SUBMANDIBULAR SALIVA SPECIFICALLY INHIBITS HIV TYPE-1

Studies from a number of laboratories have shown the presence of a fac tor(s) in whole, parotid, and submandibular human saliva capable of in hibiting HIV-1 infectivity in vitro, Data from our laboratory suggeste d that the level of anti-HIV-l activity is higher in submandibular tha n parotid or whole saliva, Previous results obtained with pooled subma ndibular saliva from seronegative individuals included a filtration st ep following saliva-virus interaction, In this article, we present dat a on the HIV-l-inhibitory activity of individual submandibular saliva samples collected from 15 donors, We show that although anti-HIV activ ity is quantitatively similar in most individuals (9 of 15), some (4 o f 15) are much less active than others and some (2 of 15) lack inhibit ory activity. We also show that for most individuals the level of anti -HIV inhibitor is similar with or without a filtration step, However, 2 of the 15 samples demonstrated activity only after filtration, The q uantitative and qualitative anti-HIV activity of individual saliva sam ples appeared to reflect differences in the individual donors, We furt her show that the anti-HIV activity of submandibular saliva is demonst rated not only against laboratory strains of HIV-I but is similarly ac tive against three clinical HIV-1 isolates. In contrast, submandibular saliva had little effect on the infectivity of HIV-2 or SIV.