Project 460762

Tooth cavities, or dental caries, is the world's leading chronic disease. To fight against caries, we propose the use of specific "friendly" or probiotic bacteria that can kill cavity-causing bacteria. We isolated five probiotic bacterial strains from the mouth of healthy children and showed in the lab that they were very powerful at killing cavity-causing bacteria. However, the efficiency of these strains to kill cavity-causing bacteria and colonize the oral cavity in the host and whether they can be incorporated into a delivery vehicle for commercial use have not been characterized. We propose to test the five probiotic strains to determine their ability to kill cavity-causing bacteria in environmental conditions found in the human mouth. First, we will determine how efficient the five strains are at killing colonies of different cavity causing bacteria under conditions found in the human mouth. Next, we propose to study the ability of these five strains to stick and colonize to the tissues in the oral cavities of mice. We will then test the ability of the five strains to survive a hydrogel delivery system. Our proposed project will push the frontiers in the care and prevention of a hugely prevalent and costly worldwide infectious disease. It will also lay the groundwork towards the development and commercialization of probiotics as preventive and therapeutic modalities against dental cavities. Our application has the potential to offer significant health and industrial implications for oral health care and prevention worldwide.