Saliva is a enzymes and stuff which breaks down food so knowing this could we use it in experiments? Is there any way

Question: Saliva is a enzymes and stuff which breaks down food so knowing this could we use it in experiments? Is there any way to make 'clean saliva' without bacteria and DNA and stuff to make it clean to use in experiments? And could it be used in any more useful way than experiments?
- Keywords:
  enzymes,
  experiments,
  saliva
Asked by niobium555 to Anna, Chris, Jane, Iain, Nick on 14 Mar 2014.
- Anna Middleton answered on 14 Mar 2014:
  
  Hi niobium555
  saliva is pretty amazing stuff. You are right it has enzymes in it that can break down food. It also has protective properties in it to help heal cuts (which is why we say ‘just kiss it better’ when a kid falls over and is also why we naturally go to suck our finger if we cut it). Saliva also contains all our DNA so you can look through 20,000 genes in a saliva sample and tell someone about their past. present and future risks of disease. You can do all sorts of things to saliva to clean out bacteria and separate out DNA.
- Iain Moal answered on 14 Mar 2014:
  
  There are enzymes in saliva which can speed up all sorts of chemical reactions. The first one I learnt about at school was amylase, which converts starch into sugars. There are also others, such as kallikrein, which breaks down proteins. It is possible to use these proteins in experiments, and indeed there have been many experiments using these for various reasons.
  
  You are also right in thinking that you can’t just spit in your test tube, because you would contaminate your experiment. It is possible, as you suggested, to purify the enzyme using saliva as a starting product. For instance, this website has a method of how you can do this to purify amylase: http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biochem/Biochem_353/amylase.html
- Jane Charlesworth answered on 18 Mar 2014:
  
  I think it would probably be possible to find out what the enzyme is in saliva that breaks down food and then make that one in the lab, to use in experiments. I imagine that could be really useful, and you’re right–we don’t want to contaminate experiments with bacteria or our DNA.

Question: Saliva is a enzymes and stuff which breaks down food so knowing this could we use it in experiments? Is there any way to make 'clean saliva' without bacteria and DNA and stuff to make it clean to use in experiments? And could it be used in any more useful way than experiments?

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