Scientists Inch Closer to Developing a Periodontal Vaccine

The first vaccine to prevent chronic periodontitis may be one step closer to reality. Researchers at the Oral Health Cooperative Research Centre at the University of Melbourne in Australia, in collaboration with CSL Limited—an Australian biopharmaceutical company—recently published a study demonstrating that mice infected with Porphyromonas gingivalis were protected from alveolar bone resorption after the administration of a vaccination that targeted P. gingivalis’most virulent factors. The paper “A Therapeutic Porphyromonas Gingivalis Gingipain Vaccine Induces Neutralising IgG1 Antibodies That Protect Against Experimental Periodontitis,” published online in the journal NPJ Vaccines, found that the P. gingivalis proteases used in the vaccine created antibodies that prevented the loss of bone structure typically associated with chronic periodontitis. Clinical trials on humans may begin as soon as 2018.

From Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. January 2017;15(1):10.