Fighting the fight for healthy teeth

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It is known that teeth can protect themselves, to some extent, from attack by bacteria but that inflammation within a tooth can be damaging and, in extreme cases, lead to abscess or death of the tooth. New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Immunology shows that odontoblast cells are part of the immune system and fight to protect teeth from decay.

Inside a tooth odontoblast cells sit between the enamel and pulp and produce a layer of dentin to protect the pulp from wear and infection. This research shows that, when under attack from bacteria, the odontoblast cells also orchestrate an immune response, producing antimicrobial peptides (-defensins) to fight the infection directly, protein messangers (chemokines) which recruit white blood cells to the site of infection, and pro-inflammatory signalling proteins (IL-1β, IL-1α, and TNF-α) which, in turn, initiate an inflammatory response.

Dr Orapin Horst also found that the odontoblast layer produced proteins involved in the down-regulation of this inflammatory response, such as toll-interacting protein (TOLLIP), TGF-β, and IL-10, which help protect the underlying pulp from inflammatory damage.

Dr Horst says that “For the first time we now have targets to control irreversible inflammatory damage to teeth”.

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Media Contact
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2370
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Notes to Editors

1. Caries Induced Cytokine Network in the Odontoblast Layer of Human Teeth
Orapin V. Horst, Jeremy A. Horst, Ram Samudrala, Beverly A. Dale
BMC Immunology (in press)

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central’s open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at on the day of publication.

2. BMC Immunology is an Open Access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on molecular, cellular, tissue-level, organismal, functional, and developmental aspects of the immune system.

3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.

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Contact: Dr Hilary Glover

44-020-319-22370
BioMed Central

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