Bacterial competitiveness appears  to  be  an  efficient  way  to  fight  pathogenic  oral  flora.  This  competition  may  be facilitated  by  probiotics,  particularly  in  periodontal  diseases.  The  aim  of  this  study  was  to  investigate  the  probioticproperties of 61 clinical isolates of oral lactobacilli.The  inhibitory  activity  of  the  tested  strains  against  periodontopathogens  was  assessed  with  the  agar  overlaytechnique. 

The  results  obtained,  as  well  as  those  resulting  from  previous  work,  led  us  to  select  the  nine  most promising  strains  on  which  we  conducted  further  tests,  such  as  evaluating  their  coaggregation  capacities  withvarious oral species and the production of proinflammatory cytokines by PBMC. We also evaluated the safety of the probiotics  by  assessing  their  sensitivity  to  antibiotics. 

Their  possible  involvement  in  halitosis  was  investigated  bytesting their ability to produce volatile sulfur compounds.The  results  of  the  agar  overlay  technique  showed  that  all  the lactobacilli  strains  had  an  antibacterial  activityagainst Tannerella  forsythia, Treponema  denticola,  and Aggregatibacter  actinomycetemcomitans. 

Fifty-two  strains slightly inhibited the growth of P. gingivalis and only two had no activity on F. nucleatum. The nine strains tested didnot  coaggregate  with P.  gingivalis, T.  forsythia, T.  denticola  or A.  actinomycetemcomitans.  Three  strains  strongly coaggregated  with F.  nucleatum.  Only  three  strains  produced  lower  IL-6  than  the  activator  at  the  maximum concentration  tested  in  this  study.  However,  none  of  the  9  strains  produced  a  greater  amount  of  IL-8  than  thatobtained  with  1  μg/ml  of  LPS.  These  results  show  us  that  all  the  strains  were  sensitive  to  the  antibiotics  tested,except  for  one  strain  which  showed  resistance  to  penicillin.  The  production  of  CSV  by  the  strains  remained  belowthe threshold of halitosis. Among the 61 strains tested, 9 proved to be of interest including one that was particularly promising.

Joise Angelina
Journal of Probiotics & Health
Whatsapp No.: +32 25889658
biotechbiomaterials@journalres.org