Contribution of Severe Dental Caries Induced by Streptococcus mutans to the Pathogenicity of Infective Endocarditis

, a major pathogen of dental caries, is regarded as a causative agent of infective endocarditis (IE), which mainly occurs in patients with underlying heart disease. However, it remains unknown whether severe dental caries that extend to pulp space represent a possible route of infection. In the pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infection and immunity 2020-06, Vol.88 (7)
Main Authors: Nomura, Ryota, Matayoshi, Saaya, Otsugu, Masatoshi, Kitamura, Takahiro, Teramoto, Noboru, Nakano, Kazuhiko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Bacterial Infections
Biopsy
Dental Caries - diagnosis
Dental Caries - etiology
Disease Models, Animal
Endocarditis, Bacterial - diagnosis
Endocarditis, Bacterial - etiology
Heart Function Tests
Rats
Streptococcal Infections - complications
Streptococcal Infections - microbiology
Streptococcus mutans - pathogenicity
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Summary:, a major pathogen of dental caries, is regarded as a causative agent of infective endocarditis (IE), which mainly occurs in patients with underlying heart disease. However, it remains unknown whether severe dental caries that extend to pulp space represent a possible route of infection. In the present study, we evaluated the virulence of for IE development using rats with concurrent severe dental caries and heart valve injury. Dental caries was induced in rats through the combination of a caries-inducing diet and the administration of into the oral cavity. Then, the heart valves of a subset of rats were injured using a sterile catheter and wire under general anesthesia. The rats were euthanized at various times with various stages of dental caries. The number of teeth affected by dental caries with pulp exposure was increased in the rats in a time-dependent manner. was recovered from injured heart tissue, which was mainly observed in rats with higher number of bacteria in mandibular bone and a larger number of teeth in which caries extended to pulp. Dental caries was more severe in rats with heart injury than in rats without heart injury. Sequencing analysis targeting 16S rRNA revealed that specific oral bacteria appeared only in rats with heart injury, which may be related to the development of dental caries. Our findings suggest that dental caries caused by the combination of infection and sucrose intake may contribute to colonization in injured heart tissue.
ISSN:0019-9567
1098-5522
DOI:10.1128/iai.00897-19