A comparative evaluation of serum and salivary different ferroxidases activities in Iraqi patients with alcoholic and non- alcoholic liver disease

The present study focused on multicopper oxidase enzymes status in sera and saliva of patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and alcohol-related liver disease (ALD). Four groups of Iraqis, 18 patients with NAFLD, 18 patients with ALD, 30 non-smokers and non-alcoholic control (control 1), and 20 smokers non-alcoholic control (control 2) were included in the study. The changes in the activity of three different ferroxidases: Total, non- ceruloplasmin (non-Cp), and ceruloplasmin (Cp) ferroxidase, were investigated in the serum and saliva of these participants, as well as measurement of total protein concentration, and copper concentration. The results indicate the activity and specific activity of serum total ferroxidase significantly decreased (p<0.001) as well as the Cp ferroxidase activity for both patients groups and the activity of non-Cp ferroxidase in ALD patients, with a highly significant increase in Cp ferroxidase specific activity in ALD patients group only. Meanwhile, all different ferroxidases activities and specific activities, except in ALD patients, showed non- significant differences (p>0.05), except the Cp ferroxidase specific activity in the ALD patients which showed a significantly increase (p=0.000) compared to its control group. The copper level was found to be highly significantly decreased (P=0.000) in serum of the patients with NAFLD and highly significantly increased in saliva of the ALD group. The results of the correlation between the changes in the studied parameters that occurred in serum and saliva indicated that there was a significant correlation in non-Cp ferroxidase activities (p<0.01) in the case of control 1, a highly significant correlation in total and non-Cp ferroxidase activities (p<0.01), as well as a significant correlation (p<0.05) in non-Cp specific activity only in NAFLD patients. Meanwhile a highly significant correlation was found in non-Cp activity (p<0.01) of control 2 group, and a highly significant correlation (p<0.01) was clear in Cp ferroxidase activity in ALD patients group. This study’s results indicated the activity of the different ferroxidases and copper concentration contribute in a different manner to the oxidative stress and iron overload reported previously in our laboratory in serum and saliva of ALD and NAFLD patients. Furthermore the results of Pearson correlations indicated the possibility of using saliva instead of serum to measure a limited number of parameters.