Bacterial adhesion to tooth surfaces or dental materials starts immediately upon exposure to the oral environment. The aim of this study, therefore, was to compare the adhesion of Streptococcus sanguinis to saliva-coated human enamel and dental materials - during a one-hour period - using an in vitro flow chamber system which mimicked the oral cavity. After fluorescent staining, the number of a...

Streptococcus sanguinis colonizes teeth and is an important cause of infective endocarditis. Our prior work showed that the lipoprotein SsaB is critical for S. sanguinis virulence for endocarditis and belongs to the LraI family of conserved metal transporters. In this study, we demonstrated that an ssaB mutant accumulates less manganese and iron than its parent. A mutant lacking the manganese-d...

CXCL10 (IP-10) is a small 10 kDa chemokine with antimicrobial activity. It is induced by IFN-γ, chemoattracts mononuclear cells, and promotes adhesion of T cells. Recently, we detected CXCL10 on the surface of the skin and in the oral cavity. In the current study, we used broth microdilution and radial diffusion assays to show that CXCL10 inhibits the growth of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus ...

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of dental adhesives containing quaternary ammonium methacrylates (QAMs) with different alkyl chain lengths (CL) on ecological caries prevention in vitro. Five QAMs were synthesized with a CL = 3, 6, 9, 12, and 16 and incorporated into adhesives. Micro-tensile bond strength and surface charge density were used to measure the physical p...

BACKGROUND Globicatella sanguinis is an uncommon pathogen that may be misdiagnosed as viridans group streptococci. We review the literature of Globicatella and report 2 clinical cases in which catalase-negative Gram-positive cocci resembling viridans group streptococci with elevated minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to ceftriaxone were inconsistently identified phenotypically, with furth...

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of mutations in exon 11 of the c-kit gene in patients with leukemia. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study included 50 leukemia patients (31 with acute myeloid leukemia, 5 with acutelymphoblastic leukemia, 9 with chronic myeloid leukemia, and 5 with chronic lymphocytic leukemia) that underwentPCR-SSCP, followed by direct DNA sequencing. RESULTS In all, 28 of th...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Severe early childhood caries is a microbial infection that severely compromises the dentition of young children. The aim of this study was to characterize the microbiota of severe early childhood caries. METHODS Dental plaque samples from 2- to 6-year-old children were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene cloning and sequencing, and by specific PCR amplification for Streptococcus mut...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Enterococcus faecium is a normal bowel commensal and lactic acid bacterium that is rarely found in the oral cavity. This study investigated whether a non-pathogenic and non-biofilm strain of E. faecium functioned as a probiotic strain toward biofilm formation by Streptococcus mutans, which is an etiological agent for dental caries. METHODS The effects of E. faecium on s...

OBJECTIVE Punica granatum has been used for many years in folk medicine due to several purposes. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of methanolic extract of Punica granatum peel (MEPGP) against Streptococcus mutans, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus salivarius, Streptococcus sanguinis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Actynomyces viscosus, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Candid...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the transfer of bacterial doxycycline resistance between oral bacteria in subjects receiving systemic doxycycline for the treatment of periodontitis. PATIENTS AND METHODS Streptococci were cultured before and after treatment from the subgingival plaque of two patients with periodontitis, genotyped and investigated for the presence of antimic...