Cosmetic Dentistry

(NC & T) The ability of Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) to survive the acid is one reason why this species is mainly responsible for tooth decay worldwide. Previous research has shown that this capacity is based on several components, including a bacterial enzyme called FabM, which when unchecked, increases at more than 10,000 times the vulnerability of the S. mutans to the damage exerted by acids.

In addition, previous work suggests that FabM, or one of the proteins associated with it, could also support all strep and staph infections to help the microorganisms to resist human defenses, which include immune system cells to undergo invading bacteria to an acid attack. Among these bacteria are responsible for meningitis, pneumonia and other severe diseases.

While the FabM represents a favorite target for designing new drugs, the goal to be pursued in the period of study is to identify and classify each of the 2,000 known genes of S. mutans that contribute to the survivability of the bacteria, its ability to prevail over other bacterial strains, and its power to wreak havoc in the mouths of their victims.

A research team from University Medical Center in Rochester has received a grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR, by its initials in English), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to look into this important area of research. Projects of this type seek to create a catalog of proteins that together with the FabM, can serve as targets for a multipronged attack bacteria that tend to adapt to attacks directed against a single target and become resistant against these attacks.

“Our first aim is to force the primary bacterium causing tooth decay to destroy itself with its own acid as soon as sugar coma,” says Robert G. Quivey, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical Center of the University of Rochester, one of the principal investigators of the study. “After this, this line of work could lead to new antibacterial combination therapies for many infectious strains have become resistant to antibiotics.