Killing of caries-related bacteria in vitro and in vivo with quaternary ammonium-bioactive restorative materials

Tooth –coloured dental material are the main choice for restorative fillings nowadays. These restorations can fail mainly due to secondary caries and restorative material fracture. Secondary caries, as the primary lesions, are marked by continuous mineral loss promoted by organic acids released by bacteria after sugar metabolization, mainly streptococci from the mutans group. Bioactive restorative materials able to reduce or modulate the dental plaque formation over the materials could inhibit biofilm acids and act as anticarie material [1]. this set of study reports the efforts to shift toward translating preclinical studies. The use of antimicrobial polymers also offers promise for enhancing the efficacy of antibacterial dental materials. Therefore, the synthesis of free radical monomers that have quaternary ammonium groups in their chemical structures paved the way for a noninvasive, biofilm-targeted method that can be used against oral biofilms. Reactive and easily miscible quaternary ammonium monomers have the advantage of copolymerizing with the current dental resin systems through covalent bonding with the polymer network[2]. These polymers are referred to as nonleaching antimicrobial or contact-killing agents. Here we report studies with the efforts to shift toward translating preclinical studies using in situ model.