The salivary glands of mammals synthesize and secrete a number of peptide growth factors that play important roles in cell/tissue homeostasis and embryonic development. Using a radioimmunoassay, insulin, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II) were detected in saliva from mice. Unlike epidermal growth factor (EGF), there was no sexual dimorphism in the concentrations of the insulin growth factor family. Immunohistochemical localization of IGF-I and IGF-II was confined to the duct cells of both the parotid and the submandibular glands. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction amplification of total RNA from parotid and submandibular glands confirmed the presence of all three hormone/growth factor mRNAs in both glands. The levels of insulin and IGF-I were higher in saliva from an animal model for autoimmune type 1 diabetes, the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse, than in a second inbred strain, BALB/c. In contrast, the IGF-II levels were decreased relative to the BALB/c strain. With the onset of diabetes in NOD mice, insulin levels declined, while IGF-I and IGF-II levels showed trends toward lower levels of these growth factors when compared with non-diabetic animals. These changes were reflected in the concentrations from parotid and submandibular gland cell lysates.
