Therapeutic vaccine against Streptococcus sobrinus-induced caries.
Streptococcus sobrinus produces a virulence-associated immunomodulatory protein (VIP) which suppresses the host-specific immune response and induces the early production of IL-10. In this study, we evaluated the effects of therapeutic immunization with this VIP on the incidence of caries in S. sobrinus-infected rats. Groups of Wistar rats were orally infected with S. sobrinus and fed with sucrose-sweetened drinking water ad libitum. Five days later, rats were immunized intranasally with active or heat-inactivated VIP plus alum as adjuvant or PBS plus adjuvant (sham-immunized). After 3 wks, all rats were re-immunized as above. Evaluation of dental caries showed that VIP-immunized animals had significantly fewer enamel sulcal and proximal caries lesions than did the sham-immunized animals (p < 0.001). The protective effects following therapeutic VIP immunization were attributed to the induced salivary immunoglobulin A specific to the VIP. These results offer a promising and safe strategy for the development of a vaccine against dental caries.[1]References
- Therapeutic vaccine against Streptococcus sobrinus-induced caries. Dinis, M., Tavares, D., Fonseca, A.J., Faria, R., Ribeiro, A., Silvério Cabrita, A.M., Ferreira, P. J. Dent. Res. (2004) [Pubmed]
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