BACKGROUND Chlorhexidine gluconate is a widely used antimicrobial agent. Adding chlorhexidine and quaternary ammonium compounds to filling materials, such as composite resins, acrylic resins, and glass ionomer cements increases the antibacterial property of restorative materials. This study includes antibacterial property of glass ionomer restorative cements with chlorhexidine gluconate. AIM ...

Enzyme I and HPr, the general proteins of the phosphoenolpyruvate-sugar phosphotransferase system, play a pivotal role in the control of sugar utilization in gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. To determine whether growth conditions could modify the rate of biosynthesis of these proteins in Streptococcus mutans, we first purified to homogeneity enzyme I and HPr from S. mutans ATCC 27352. ...

This work correlated the presence of oral streptococci in dental biofilm with clinical indexes of caries and oral hygiene in caries-active and caries-free children. S. mutans and/or S. sobrinus in the dental biofilm does not indicate a direct risk for developing dental caries.

So far, Streptococcus devriesei, which belongs to the mutans streptococci group, has been incriminated in the formation of caries in Equidae. We report the first human infection due to this species in a 54-year-old man with gangrenous cholecystitis. The patient was treated successfully by cholecystectomy and ceftriaxone.

The prevalence and role of viridans group streptococci in the female genital tract have not been well described. In this study of 482 pregnant women, 147 (30%) were culture positive for viridans group streptococci. Of 392 women with predominant Lactobacillus morphotypes by Gram stain (normal), 110 (28%) were colonized with viridans group streptococci, compared with 37 (41%) of 90 women with bac...

Cell wall-anchored polypeptides of the antigen I/II family are produced by many species of oral streptococci. These proteins mediate adhesion of streptococci to salivary glycoproteins and to other oral microorganisms and promote binding of cells to collagen type I and invasion of dentinal tubules. Since infections of the root canal system have a mixed anaerobic bacterial etiology, we investigat...

Xylitol is effective as a non-cariogenic sugar substitute. Habitual xylitol consumption appears to select for mutans streptococci (MS) with impaired adhesion properties, i.e., they shed easily to saliva from plaque. One hundred sixty-nine mother-child pairs participated in a two-year study exploring whether the mothers' xylitol consumption could be used to prevent mother-child transmission of m...

Dental caries is an oral disease, which has a high worldwide prevalence despite the availability of various prophylactic means, including the daily use of fluoride toothpastes, water fluoridation, dental sealants, oral health educational programs and various antiseptic mouth-rinses. One important reason for this is uncontrolled increase in consumption of foods containing considerable sucrose co...

One major challenge to studying human microbiome and its associated diseases is the lack of effective tools to achieve targeted modulation of individual species and study its ecological function within multispecies communities. Here, we show that C16G2, a specifically targeted antimicrobial peptide, was able to selectively kill cariogenic pathogen Streptococcus mutans with high efficacy within ...

In this study, for the first time, we investigated in vitro inhibitory effects of Drymocallis rupestris extracts and their subfractions obtained with solvents of different polarity (aqueous, 50% ethanolic, diethyl ether, ethyl acetate and n-butanolic) against bacterial viability and caries virulence factors of Streptococcus spp. strains. The diethyl ether subfraction (PRU2) showed bacteriostati...