Scientists identify a rise in life-threatening heart infection

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have identified a significant rise in the number of people diagnosed with a serious heart infection alongside a large fall in the prescribing of antibiotic prophylaxis to dental patients.

The pioneering study is the largest and most comprehensive to be conducted with regards to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which recommended dentists should no longer give antibiotics before invasive treatments to people considered at risk of the life threatening heart infection, Infective Endocarditis (IE), which in 40 per cent of cases is caused by bacteria from the mouth.

The team of international researchers, led by Professor Martin Thornhill at the University of Sheffield’s School of Clinical Dentistry, discovered that since the NICE guidelines were introduced in March 2008, there has been an increase in cases of Infective Endocarditis above the expected trend. By March 2013 this accounted for an extra 35 cases per month.

They also identified that the prescribing of antibiotic prophylaxis fell by 89 per cent from 10,900 prescriptions a month, before the 2008 guidelines, to 1,235 a month by March 2008.

Martin Thornhill, Professor of Translational Research in Dentistry at the University of Sheffield, said: “Infective Endocarditis is a rare but serious infection of the heart lining. We hope that our data will provide the information that guideline committees need to re-evaluate the benefits, or not, of giving antibiotic prophylaxis.

Professor Thornhill stressed that healthcare professionals and patients should wait for the guideline committees to evaluate the evidence and give their advice before changing their current practice.

He added: “In the meantime, healthcare professionals and patients should focus on maintaining high standards of oral hygiene. This will reduce the number of bacteria in the mouth which have the potential to cause Infective Endocarditis and reduce the need for invasive dental procedures to be performed.”

The data analysed by an international collaboration of experts from the University of Sheffield, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust, and the University of Surrey in the UK, as well as from the Mayo Clinic and the Carolinas HealthCare System’s Carolinas Medical Center in the USA, is published in The Lancet and will be presented to more than 19,000 delegates from across the world at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Chicago.

The research was funded by a grant from national heart charity Heart Research UK, healthcare provider Simplyhealth and the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

Barbara Harpham, National Director of Heart Research UK, said: “The findings play an important part in the ongoing exploration of the link between dental and heart health.

“Projects such as this one are vital to the ongoing collation of evidence to support our understanding of how oral health can impact upon the heart and other conditions within the body. We are committed to furthering medical research in the UK and welcome these new findings.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/285754.php

 

 

 

Simple saliva test may reveal deadly diseases early enough to treat them

UCLA research could lead to a simple saliva test capable of diagnosing – at an early stage – diabetes and cancer, and perhaps neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases.

The study, the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of RNA molecules in human saliva, reveals that saliva contains many of the same disease-revealing molecules that are contained in blood. It was published online by the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Chemistry and will be published in the journal’s January 2015 special print issue, “Molecular Diagnostics: A Revolution in Progress.”

“If we can define the boundaries of molecular targets in saliva, then we can ask what the constituents in saliva are that can mark someone who has pre-diabetes or the early stages of oral cancer or pancreatic cancer – and we can utilize this knowledge for personalized medicine,” said Dr. David Wong, a senior author of the research and UCLA’s Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Professor in Dentistry.

Wong said the test also holds promise for diagnosing Type 2 diabetes, gastric cancer and other diseases. “If you don’t look in saliva, you may miss important indicators of disease,” Wong said. “There seems to be treasure in saliva, which will surprise people.”

RNA, widely known as a cellular messenger that makes proteins and carries out DNA’s instructions to other parts of the cell, is now understood to perform sophisticated chemical reactions and is believed to perform an extraordinary number of other functions, at least some of which are unknown.

Wong’s research over the past decade has focused on identifying biomarkers in saliva. His laboratory discovered that some of the same RNA that is inside human cells are also present in saliva and can be used to detect diseases – a surprising finding, he said, because enzymes in saliva can degrade RNA, making the mouth “a hostile environment.”

The new research is a collaboration with Xinshu (Grace) Xiao, the paper’s other senior author and a UCLA associate professor of integrative biology and physiology. Using state-of-the-science genomics and bioinformatics, the researchers analyzed 165 million genetic sequences.

Among the many forms of RNA are some unusual ones that live in the mouth and in cells. For example, it wasn’t known until very recently that RNA comes in a circular form; the linear form has long been known. But the UCLA scientists identified more than 400 circular RNAs in human saliva – the first discovery of circular RNA in saliva or any body fluid – including 327 forms that were previously unknown.

Circular RNA’s function in saliva is not entirely understood, although it does serve as a sponge for tiny RNA molecules called microRNAs, which bind to it.

“Circular RNAs in saliva may be protecting other RNAs,” said Xiao, who also is a faculty member in the UCLA College and a member of UCLA’s Molecular Biology Institute. It’s likely, she said, that circular RNAs in saliva protect microRNAs from being degraded.

MicroRNAs, which once seemed to be little more than molecular noise, play important roles in many cell types, and have been implicated in cancers and other diseases, Xiao said. One microRNA can regulate hundreds of genes, she said.

The scientists compared microRNA levels in saliva to those in the blood and other body fluids, and found the levels of microRNA in blood and in saliva are very similar – indicating that a saliva sample would be a good measure of microRNAs in the body.

They also found that saliva contains another class of small RNAs, called piwi-interacting RNAs, or piRNAs, which are produced by stem cells, skin cells and germ cells. There are very few piRNAs in blood and most other body fluids, but Xiao’s analysis showed that piRNA are abundant in saliva. Although their function is not yet known, Xiao said they may protect the body from viral infection.

While most RNA molecules translate genetic code from DNA to make proteins, there is also a class called non-coding RNAs that does not.

“Saliva carries with it non-coding RNAs, microRNAs, piRNAs and circRNAs that are biomarkers for disease and health monitoring,” said Wong, who also is associate dean of research at the UCLA School of Dentistry. “Had we not done this collaboration, we would never know that non-coding RNAs, microRNAs, piRNAs and circRNAs exist in saliva.”

Their overriding conclusion is that saliva has tremendous medical and scientific value. In the not-too-distant future, dentists might be able to take saliva samples to analyze for a variety of diseases. And, Wong says, the research could lead to a new category of self-diagnostic devices. “This could indicate that wearable gear that informs you whether you have a disease – even before you have any symptoms – is almost here,” he said.

The scientists, both members of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, will continue their research, aiming to better understand the biology behind their findings, including the function of piRNAs.

“With a collaborator like Dr. Xiao, UCLA will continue to spearhead this science,” Wong said. “Now we have the capability and technology to reach deeper and study non-coding RNA, which has never been done.”

Adapted by MNT from original media release

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/284671.php

Picture courtesy to nutrihealthmagazine.com.

 

 

Risk of pneumonia in the elderly doubled by sleeping in dentures

Poor oral health and hygiene are increasingly recognized as major risk factors for pneumonia among the elderly. To identify modifiable oral health-related risk factors, lead researcher Toshimitsu Iinuma, Nihon University School of Dentistry, Japan, and a team of researchers prospectively investigated associations between a constellation of oral health behaviors and incidences of pneumonia in the community-living of elders 85 years of age or older. This study, titled “Denture Wearing During Sleep Doubles the Risk of Pneumonia in Very Elderly,” has been published by the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR in the OnlineFirst portion of the Journal of Dental Research (JDR).

At baseline, 524 randomly selected seniors (228 males, 296 females, average age was 87.8 years old) were examined for oral health status and oral hygiene behaviors as well as medical assessment, including blood chemistry analysis, and followed up annually until first hospitalization for or death from pneumonia. Over a three-year follow-up period, 48 events associated with pneumonia were identified (20 deaths and 28 acute hospitalizations). Among 453 denture wearers, 186 (40.8%) who wore their dentures during sleep, were at higher risk for pneumonia than those who removed their dentures at night.

In a multivariate Cox model, both perceived swallowing difficulties and overnight denture wearing were independently associated with approximately 2.3-fold higher risk of the incidence of pneumonia, which was comparable with the high risk attributable to cognitive impairment, history of stroke and respiratory disease. In addition, those who wore dentures while sleeping were more likely to have tongue and denture plaque, gum inflammation, positive culture for Candida albicans, and higher levels of circulating interleukin-6 as compared to their counterparts.

This study provides empirical evidence that denture wearing during sleep is associated not only with oral inflammatory and microbial burden but also with incident pneumonia, suggesting potential implications of oral hygiene programs for pneumonia prevention in the community. Frauke Mueller, University of Geneva, Switzerland, wrote a perspective titled “Oral Hygiene Reduces the Mortality From Aspiration Pneumonia in Frail Elders,” commenting that these findings lead to a simple and straight forward clinical recommendation – denture wearing during the night should be discouraged in geriatric patients.

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/283627.php

 

 

 

The sixth most prevalent health condition in the world – severe periodontitis

The International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) have published a paper titled “Global Burden of Periodontitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression.” The manuscript, by lead researcher Wagner Marcenes (Queen Mary University of London, Institute of Dentistry, Barts and The London School) is published in the Online First portion of the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research (JDR).

The purpose of this study was to consolidate all epidemiological data about severe periodontitis and subsequently to generate internally consistent prevalence and incidence estimates for all countries, 20 age groups, and both sexes for 1990 and 2010. From the systematic search, a total of 72 qualifying studies involving 291,170 individuals aged 15 years or older from 37 countries were included in the meta-regression using modeling resources of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2010 Study.

In 2010, severe periodontitis was the sixth most prevalent condition in the world affecting 743 million people worldwide. Between 1990 and 2010, the global age-standardized prevalence of severe periodontitis was static at 11.2%. The age-standardized incidence of severe periodontitis in 2010 was 701 cases per 100,000 person-years, a non-significant increase from the 1990 incidence of severe periodontitis. Prevalence increased gradually with age showing a steep increase between the third and fourth decades of life that was driven by a peak in incidence at around 38 years of age. There were considerable variations in prevalence and incidence between regions and countries.

These findings underscore the enormous public health challenge posed by severe periodontitis and are a microcosm of the epidemiologic transition to non-communicable diseases occurring in many countries. “The results of this first global assessment of periodontal diseases underscore the healthcare burden of this prevalent oral disease on a major portion of the world’s population,” said Editor-in-Chief of the journal William Giannobile.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/283149.php

 

 

Picture courtesy of ww

w.qualitydentistry.com

Researchers note need to improve dental service use among US women of childbearing age

Oral diseases can be prevented or improved with regular dental visits. The objective of this study was to assess and compare national estimates on self-reported oral health conditions and dental visits among pregnant women and non-pregnant women of childbearing age by using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Researchers analyzed self-reported oral health information on 897 pregnant women and 3,971 non-pregnant women of childbearing age (15-44 years) from NHANES 1999-2004. They found disparities in self-reported oral health conditions and use of dental services among women regardless of pregnancy status. The percentage of women who reported having very good or good mouth and teeth condition was significantly higher among older pregnant women (aged 35-44 years) than among younger pregnant women (15-24 years). In contrast, the percentage of women who reported having very good or good mouth and teeth condition was significantly higher among younger non-pregnant women aged 15 to 24 than among older pregnant women aged 35 to 44.

Researchers note that the results highlight the need to improve dental service use among US women of childbearing age, especially young pregnant women, those who are non-Hispanic black or Mexican American, and those with low family income or low education level. Prenatal visits could be used as an opportunity to encourage pregnant women to seek preventive dental care during pregnancy.

Study: Oral Health Conditions and Dental Visits Among Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women of Childbearing Age in the United States, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2004, Alejandro Azofeifa, DDS, MSc, MPH,Preventing Chronic Disease, published 18 September 2014.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/282732.php

 

 

Association between widely used depression drug and dental implant failure

The International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) have published a paper titled “SSRIs and the Risk of Osseointegrated Implant Failure – A Cohort Study.” Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), the most widely used drugs for the treatment of depression, have been reported to reduce bone formation and increase the risk of bone fracture. Since osseointegration is influenced by bone metabolism, this study investigates the association between SSRIs and the risk of failures in osseointegrated implants. The manuscript, by researchers Khadijeh Al-Abedalla, Samer Abi Nader, Belinda Nicolau, Emad Rastikerdar, Faleh Tamimi and Xixi Wu, from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; and Nach Daniel, from East Coast Oral Surgery, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, is published in the OnlineFirst portion of the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research (JDR).

This retrospective cohort study was conducted on patients treated with dental implants from January 2007 to January 2013. A total of 916 dental implants in 490 patients (94 implants on 51 patients using SSRIs) were used to estimate the risk of failure associated with the use of SSRIs. Data analysis involved cox proportional hazards, generalized estimating equations models and Kaplan-Meier analysis. After three to 67 months of follow-up, 38 dental implants failed and 784 succeeded in nonusers group while 10 failed and 84 succeeded in SSRIs-users group.

The primary outcome was that compared with non-users of SSRIs, SSRIs usage was associated with an increased risk of dental implants failure (HR= 2∙31; P< 0∙01). The failure rates were 4.6% for SSRI non-users and 10.6% SSRI users, respectively. The secondary outcomes were that small implant diameters (≤4mm) (P=0∙01), bone augmentation (P=0∙04) and smoking habits (P<0∙01) also seemed to be associated with higher risk of implant failure. The main limitation of this retrospective study was that drug compliance dose and treatment period could not be acquired from the files of the patients.

Within the limits of this study, these findings indicate that treatment with SSRIs is associated with an increased failure risk of osseointegrated implants.

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/282056.php

 

 

Coated tissue scaffolds help the body grow new bone to repair injuries or congenital defects

MIT chemical engineers have devised a new implantable tissue scaffold coated with bone growth factors that are released slowly over a few weeks. When applied to bone injuries or defects, this coated scaffold induces the body to rapidly form new bone that looks and behaves just like the original tissue.

This type of coated scaffold could offer a dramatic improvement over the current standard for treating bone injuries, which involves transplanting bone from another part of the patient’s body – a painful process that does not always supply enough bone. Patients with severe bone injuries, such as soldiers wounded in battle; people who suffer from congenital bone defects, such as craniomaxillofacial disorders; and patients in need of bone augmentation prior to insertion of dental implants could benefit from the new tissue scaffold, the researchers say.

“It’s been a truly challenging medical problem, and we have tried to provide one way to address that problem,” says Nisarg Shah, a recent PhD recipient and lead author of the paper, which appears in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesthis week.

Paula Hammond, the David H. Koch Professor in Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Chemical Engineering, is the paper’s senior author. Other authors are postdocs M. Nasim Hyder and Mohiuddin Quadir, graduate student Noémie-Manuelle Dorval Courchesne, Howard Seeherman of Restituo, Myron Nevins of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Myron Spector of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Stimulating bone growth

Two of the most important bone growth factors are platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2). As part of the natural wound-healing cascade, PDGF is one of the first factors released immediately following a bone injury, such as a fracture. After PDGF appears, other factors, including BMP-2, help to create the right environment for bone regeneration by recruiting cells that can produce bone and forming a supportive structure, including blood vessels.

Efforts to treat bone injury with these growth factors have been hindered by the inability to effectively deliver them in a controlled manner. When very large quantities of growth factors are delivered too quickly, they are rapidly cleared from the treatment site – so they have reduced impact on tissue repair, and can also induce unwanted side effects.

“You want the growth factor to be released very slowly and with nanogram or microgram quantities, not milligram quantities,” Hammond says. “You want to recruit these native adult stem cells we have in our bone marrow to go to the site of injury and then generate bone around the scaffold, and you want to generate a vascular system to go with it.”

This process takes time, so ideally the growth factors would be released slowly over several days or weeks. To achieve this, the MIT team created a very thin, porous scaffold sheet coated with layers of PDGF and BMP. Using a technique called layer-by-layer assembly, they first coated the sheet with about 40 layers of BMP-2; on top of that are another 40 layers of PDGF. This allowed PDGF to be released more quickly, along with a more sustained BMP-2 release, mimicking aspects of natural healing.

“This is a major advantage for tissue engineering for bones because the release of the signaling proteins has to be slow and it has to be scheduled,” says Nicholas Kotov, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan who was not part of the research team.

The scaffold sheet is about 0.1 millimeter thick; once the growth-factor coatings are applied, scaffolds can be cut from the sheet on demand, and in the appropriate size for implantation into a bone injury or defect.

Effective repair

The researchers tested the scaffold in rats with a skull defect large enough – 8 millimeters in diameter – that it could not heal on its own. After the scaffold was implanted, growth factors were released at different rates. PDGF, released during the first few days after implantation, helped initiate the wound-healing cascade and mobilize different precursor cells to the site of the wound. These cells are responsible for forming new tissue, including blood vessels, supportive vascular structures, and bone.

BMP, released more slowly, then induced some of these immature cells to become osteoblasts, which produce bone. When both growth factors were used together, these cells generated a layer of bone, as soon as two weeks after surgery, that was indistinguishable from natural bone in its appearance and mechanical properties, the researchers say.

“Using this combination allows us to not only have accelerated proliferation first, but also facilitates laying down some vascular tissue, which provides a route for both the stem cells and the precursor osteoblasts and other players to get in and do their jobs. You end up with a very uniform healed system,” Hammond says.

Another advantage of this approach is that the scaffold is biodegradable and breaks down inside the body within a few weeks. The scaffold material, a polymer called PLGA, is widely used in medical treatment and can be tuned to disintegrate at a specific rate so the researchers can design it to last only as long as needed.

Hammond’s team has filed a patent based on this work and now aims to begin testing the system in larger animals in hopes of eventually moving it into clinical trials.

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/281315.php

 

 

 

What’s the best way to brush teeth? Even dentists and dental associations don’t agree

 

Advice on how we should brush our teeth from dental associations and toothpaste companies is ‘unacceptably inconsistent’, finds new UCL research.

The study, published in the British Dental Journal, looked at the brushing advice given by dental associations across ten countries, toothpaste and toothbrush companies and in dental textbooks. They found a wide range of recommendations on what brushing method to use, how often to brush and for how long.

The researchers found no clear consensus between the various sources, and a ‘worrying’ lack of agreement between advice from dental associations compared with dental textbooks.

“The public needs to have sound information on the best method to brush their teeth,” says Aubrey Sheiham, Emeritus Professor of Dental Public Health (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), senior author of the study. “If people hear one thing from a dental association, another from a toothbrush company and something else from their dentist, no wonder they are confused about how to brush. In this study we found an unacceptably inconsistent array of advice from different sources.

“Dental associations need to be consistent about what method to recommend, based on how effective the method is. Most worryingly, the methods recommended by dental associations are not the same as the best ones mentioned in dental textbooks. There is no evidence to suggest that complicated techniques are any better than a simple gentle scrub.”

The most commonly-recommended technique involves gently jiggling the brush back and forth in small motions, with the intention of shaking loose any food particles, plaque and bacteria. However, no large-scale studies have ever shown this method to be any more effective than basic scrubbing.

“Brush gently with a simple horizontal scrubbing motion, with the brush at a forty-five degree angle to get to the dental plaque,” Professor Sheiham advises. “To avoid brushing too hard, hold the brush with a pencil grip rather than a fist. This simple method is perfectly effective at keeping your gums healthy.

“There is little point in brushing after eating sweets or sugary drinks to prevent tooth decay. It takes bacteria from food about two minutes to start producing acid, so if you brush your teeth a few minutes after eating sugary foods, the acid will have damaged the enamel.”

The conflicting messages given by different organisations highlight the need for research into how effective different brushing methods are. At present, the expert advice in the guidelines, ‘The scientific basis of dental health education’, recommend a simple scrubbing technique as it is easy to learn and there is no evidence to justify a more complicated method.

“The wide range of recommendations we found is likely due to the lack of strong evidence suggesting that one method is conclusively better than another,” says lead author Dr John Wainwright, who carried out the study at UCL and is now a practising dentist. “I advise my patients to focus their brushing on areas where plaque is most likely to collect – the biting surfaces and where the teeth and gums meet – and to use a gentle scrubbing motion. All too frequently I am asked why the method I am describing differs from how previous dentists have taught them in the past.

“What I feel we need is better research into what the easiest to learn, most effective and safest way to brush is. The current situation where not just individual dentists, but different dental organisations worldwide are all issuing different brushing guidelines isn’t just confusing – it’s undermining faith and trust in the profession as a whole. For something most people do twice a day, you would expect dentists to send a clearer, more unified message to their patients on how to brush their teeth.”

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/280772.php

 

 

Antiarthritics can exacerbate other inflammatory diseases like periodontitis

Inflammatory diseases can occur simultaneously in distinct sites in the same patient, complicating treatment because a medication effective for one disorder may exacerbate the other. One such example is the anti-arthritic medication dexamethasone, which alleviates joint disease but can worsen periodontal bone disease. A study in the August issue of The American Journal of Pathology highlights the effects of a new class of anti-arthritic drugs, specifically DTrp8-ɣMSH (DTrp), that acts via the melanocortin (MC) system to reduce both arthritic joint inflammation and periodontitis.

“This research, a joint program with the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil, indicates that MC receptor agonists, possibly better if selective for MC3, represent a novel class of anti-arthritic therapeutics able to target joint disease without aggravating unwanted effects on distant organs and tissues,” says Mauro Perretti, PhD, of Queen Mary University of London, Barts, and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (UK).

More than 60 years ago, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) was shown to be effective for treating rheumatoid and gouty arthritis, yet its current clinical use is very sporadic. It is now appreciated that some of the anti-inflammatory actions of ACTH are mediated via the peripheral MC system on MC receptors expressed in bone cells, fibroblasts, and immune cells. Research has shown that activation of MC receptors by ACTH or other MC peptides can lead to a variety of protective actions against bone loss, including increased matrix deposition, reduced osteoclast activation, and enhanced proliferation of bone-forming cells.

In this study, researchers first determined whether mice that were induced with experimental arthritis also manifested bone loss in the alveolar (tooth socket) bone. They found that bone loss in the jaw correlated with the severity of localized inflammation in the joints of the mice.

They next compared the effects of a peptide that selectively activates MC3 receptors in mice on both arthritis and alveolar bone loss, and compared the effects to other known medications. The glucocorticoid dexamethasone exerted potent anti-arthritic effect, which were, however, inversely correlated with protection against bone loss. This was markedly distinct from the effect seen with DTrp, which showed a highly positive correlation between clinical score and bone loss (ie reduced bone loss associated with better anti-arthritic effect). Calcitonin had little effect on arthritis but did protect against alveolar bone loss. “This finding is of relevance as prolonged steroid therapy is associated with bone density loss, osteoporosis, and fractures; melanocortin-based therapeutics could spare these unwanted actions,” says Dr. Perretti.

“DTrp could be viewed as a starting point for a new class of bone-sparing anti-arthritic agents,” says John L. Wallace, PhD, MBA, of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada and University of Toronto, in a commentary on these findings. “This study highlights the continued value of simpler and cheaper (for both the maker and the end-user) approaches to drug development, harnessing the potential of endogenous anti-inflammatory mechanisms.”

According to Dr. Wallace, drugs that harness endogenous anti-inflammatory mechanisms like the MC system offer a number of advantages: they produce a wide range of anti-inflammatory effects, promote the healing of injured tissue, and are potentially associated with very few adverse effects. He comments that these medications “hold out significant promise for safely treating a wide range of inflammatory disorders including, like MC3 agonists, co-existing inflammatory diseases in the same patient.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/279477.php

 

 

 

 

Tooth protein offers promise for bone regeneration

Patients suffering from osteoporosis or bone fractures might benefit from a new discovery of a protein that plays an important role in bone regeneration made by bioengineers at Queen Mary University of London.

Normally found in the formation of enamel, which is an important component of teeth, the scientists discovered that a partial segment of the protein statherin can be used to signal bone growth.

“What is surprising and encouraging about this research is that we can now use this particular molecule to signal cells and enhance bone growth within the body,” said co-author Dr Alvaro Mata from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science and the Institute of Bioengineering.

Publishing in the journal Biomaterials, the team created bioactive membranes made from segments of different proteins to show which protein in particular played the crucial role. They demonstrated the bone stimulating effect in a rat model, and used analytical techniques to visualise and measure the newly formed calcified tissue.

Co-author Dr Esther Tejeda-Montes, also at QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science said: “The benefit of creating a membrane of proteins using these molecules means it can be both bioactive and easily handled to apply over injured areas in the bone.”

Dr Mata added: “Our work enables the possibility to create robust synthetic bone grafts that can be tuned to stimulate the natural regenerative process, which is limited in most synthetic bone graft alternatives.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/279139.php

Picture courtesy of www.dentalnewspk.com

 

 

Picture courtesy of www.dentalnewspk.com