saliva and serum NOx-data
Description
Nitric oxide plays a vital role in neurological development. As an easily accessible and non-invasive fluid, saliva hasn’t been evaluated for nitrite among autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This dataset shows the salivary nitrite, serum nitrite and nitrate levels of 126 ASD children and 129 normally developing children (the control group). In the ASD group, salivary nitrite was significantly higher than that in the control, with concentrations of 4.97±3.77 μM (0.55 – 16.46 μM) and 2.66 ± 2.07 μM (0.23 – 9.83 μM) (p < 0.0001), respectively. Similarly, serum nitrite and nitrate of the ASD group were also significantly higher than those of the control group. Serum nitrite levels in the ASD and control groups were 0.26 ± 0.20 μM and 0.18 ± 0.10 μM (p < 0.0001). Serum nitrate levels in the ASD and control groups were 42.02 ± 23.97 μM and 35.74 ± 13.49 μM, respectively, with p equal to 0.0109. Positive correlation was observed among saliva nitrite, serum nitrite and serum nitrate in ASD children, which didn’t exist in the control. Taken together, along with elevated serum NOx, up-regulated salivary nitrite showed strong correlation with ASD, which might serve as another potential biomarker for ASD diagnosis.