Disrupting bacterial ‘chatter’ could improve oral health
Communication between bacteria in the mouth could be 'hacked' to prevent formulation of plaque.
Communication between different bacteria in the mouth could be ‘hacked’ to prevent the formulation of plaque and maintain a healthy oral biome, according to researchers.
Bacteria are very ‘talkative’, they said; constant streams of communication, known as quorum sensing, occur between and among the 700 species of bacteria that live in a human mouth. A number of them communicate via special molecules called N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs).
Bacteria in dental plaque produce AHLs in aerobic environments, such as above the gumline, and these messages can be received by bacteria in anaerobic environments beneath the gumline.
The team at the College of Biological Sciences and the School of Dentistry wanted to better understand how bacteria in the mouth communicate, and whether this communication could be hacked to prevent the formulation of plaque and maintain a healthy oral biome.
“Dental plaque develops in a sequence, much like a forest ecosystem,” said Mikael Elias, associate professor in the College of Biological Sciences and senior author of the study.
“Pioneer species like Streptococcus and Actinomyces are the initial settlers in simple communities — they’re generally harmless and associated with good oral health.
“Increasingly diverse late colonisers include the ‘red complex’ bacteria like Porphyromonas gingivalis, which are strongly linked to periodontal disease.
“By disrupting the chemical signals bacteria use to communicate, one could manipulate the plaque community to remain or return to its health-associated stage.”
Rakesh Sikdar, the lead author, said: “What’s particularly striking is how oxygen availability changes everything. When we blocked AHL signaling in aerobic conditions, we saw more health-associated bacteria.
“But when we added AHLs under anaerobic conditions, we promoted the growth of disease-associated late colonisers. Quorum sensing may play very different roles above and below the gumline, which has major implications for how we approach treatment of periodontal diseases.”
Their research, was published in the journal npj Biofilms and Microbiomes.
The next step for researchers is to study how bacterial messaging occurs in different parts of the mouth, and in patients with varying stages of periodontal disease.
“Understanding how bacterial communities communicate and organize themselves may ultimately give us new tools to prevent periodontal disease—not by waging war on all oral bacteria, but by strategically maintaining a healthy microbial balance,” said Elias.
Their research also has implications for the future of medicine. The team hopes their method could be the foundation for therapeutics that can be used throughout the body, where microbiome dysbiosis causes health problems and is linked to certain types of cancer.