Mostly Microbes and Infection

This commentary describes the changes taking place in dentistry and speculates on improvements that could happen soon. Advances in health care will have an impact on the integration and delivery of oral care; conversely, there is growing acceptance that oral health impacts systemic health. Technological innovations are changing the face of medical care and are quickly becoming integrated into dentistry. Advances in novel antimicrobials, genomics, robotics and artificial intelligence are transforming our ability to diagnose and manage disease.  

The immune system employs a temporal hierarchy of effector mechanisms to combat infections by intracellular pathogens. The nonspecific response is independent of MHC and can be activated rapidly, while the specific response is slower, more specific, and requires major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. MHC-dependent responses have been characterized extensively  in vitro  for antigens presented by polymorphic MHC class la and class II proteins and recognized by T lymphocytes carrying α/β T-cell receptors (TcR). Growing indirect evidence has implicated monomorphic MHC class lb proteins and γ/δ T lymphocytes in defense against bacterial infections, but the biochemical and immunological behavior of class lb proteins and γ/δ TcR has not been well characterized, and most hypotheses involving these proteins have relied on data obtained with polymorphic MHC proteins and α/β TcR. An overview of studies describing bacterial infections  in vivo  suggests that, in many...

Boswellia   trees, found throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, are the source of frankincense oil. Since antiquity, frankincense has been traded as a precious commodity, but it has also been used for the treatment of chronic disease, inflammation, oral health, and microbial infection. More recently, the bioactive components of   Boswellia   trees have been identified and characterized for their effects on cancer, microbial infection (especially infection by oral pathogens), and inflammation. Most studies have focused on cell lines, but more recent research has also investigated effects in animal models of disease. As natural products are considered to be safer than synthetic drugs, there is growing interest in further developing the use of substances such as frankincense oil for therapeutic treatment.