Small Molecule Compound Prevents Tooth Decay

저자：   업로드：2017-08-15  조회수：

    In the late 1980’s, an advertising campaign for Crest toothpaste pitted a team of toothbrush-toting superheroes against the dreaded “Cavity Creeps,” who sought to destroy the peaceful, dentally entwined city of Toothopolis. In actuality, the evil cavity creeps are bacterial species that are capable of creating sticky biofilms that allow them to be glued to the surface of teeth, eating away the enamel.

    University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers have created a small molecule that prevents or impedes tooth cavities in a preclinical model.  The inhibitor molecule blocks the function of a key virulence enzyme in an oral bacterium, a molecular sabotage that is akin to throwing a monkey wrench into machinery to jam the gears.

    In the presence of the molecule, Streptococcus mutans—the prime bacterial cause of the tooth decay called dental caries—is unable to produce biofilms. Interestingly, this selective inhibition of the sticky biofilm appeared to act specifically against S. mutans and drastically reduced dental caries in rats fed a caries-promoting diet.

    Findings from the study were published recently in Scientific Reports in an article entitled “Structure-Based Discovery of Small Molecule Inhibitors of Cariogenic Virulence.”

    "Our compound is drug-like, non-bactericidal, easy to synthesize, and exhibits very potent efficacy in vivo," the authors wrote. It is "an excellent candidate that can be developed into therapeutic drugs that prevent and treat dental caries."

    "If we have something that can selectively take away the bacteria's ability to form biofilms, that would be a tremendous advance," noted co-senior study investigator Sadanandan Velu, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences.

    About 2.3 billion people worldwide have dental caries in their permanent teeth, according to a 2015 Global Burden of Disease study. Current practices to prevent cavities, such as mouthwash and tooth brushing, indiscriminately remove oral bacteria through chemical and physical means and have limited success.