In situ monitoring of arginine in living dental biofilms
EMSL Project ID
49205
Abstract
Dental caries disease is one of the most widespread diseases globally. A hallmark of supragingival microbial communities is the ability to rapidly metabolize carbohydrates, which dramatically reduces the pH. The subsequent recovery of pH is a homeostatic mechanism poorly understood yet is a key aspect of a host-beneficial microbiome, which maintains oral health and reduces cariogenic activity. In this study, we will seek to more fully understand the mechanisms, rates and factors that influence arginine deaminase activity and will employ the established in vitro oral biofilm models derived from caries. The unique NMR system developed for biofilms studies at EMSL is the only system in the world that can carry out the required experiments on arginine metabolism with magenetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and diffusion in real-time within live oral biofilms and with depth resolution. PI McLean was co-developer of this unique NMR/biofilm system at EMSL while employed at PNNL which resulted in several high impact publications (Majors, McLean et al. 2005a, Majors, McLean et al. 2005b, Majors, McLean et al. 2008, McLean, Ona et al. 2008, McLean, Fansler et al. 2012) and an NIH R21 award from NIDCR. Notably, this system provided the very first spatially resolved metabolite data within live active environmental and oral biofilms. Further development of this system and improvement of the methodology/hardware in subsequent years (Renslow, Majors et al. 2010) provides an even more powerful and unique approach to understand human microbiome communities.
Project Details
Start Date
2016-04-07
End Date
2016-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Co-Investigator(s)