Dental caries vaccine: An overview

Abstract

Dental caries is an irreversible microbial disease of the tooth which fulfills the idea of an infectious disease and hence the possibilities of vaccination have been considered. Many pertinent components of vaccine development, such as protein, recombinant or synthetic peptide, or DNA-based active vaccines, as well as mucosal adjuvants, such as heat-labile enterotoxins from Vibrio cholera or Escherichia coli, and chitosan, have proven effective through numerous in vitro and in vivo researches, as well as some human clinical trials. The use of adjuvants and the routes of antigen administration have both been studied to improve the host response. Vaccines such as pGJA-P/VAX, LT derivative/Pi39-512, KFD2-rPAc and SBR/GBR-CMV-nirB are few of the potential vaccines that have been produced and tested in animals in recent years. However, there is still a scarcity of information about the role of caries vaccine in human population. Multicentre collaborative studies and clinical trials of immunologically superior dental caries vaccine formulations are the need of the hour for preventing dental caries.