A Chinese team of researchers has developed a gel that gives tooth enamel the ability to self-repair. Ultimately, it could prevent people from developing cavities and therefore fillings.
Dental caries is the result of an infectious disease: the bacteria infiltrate the enamel of the tooth and demineralize it, before attacking the dentin. Thus destroyed, the hard tissues of the tooth give way to a hole, which must then be filled and protected using a filling, generally made of porcelain, resin or metal.
But these foreign materials often have difficulty bonding permanently to the surface of the tooth, and it is not uncommon for them to come off after a few years.
A team of researchers from Zhejiang University, China, may have found a solution to this problem. In a study published in the journal Science Advancesthey explain that they have developed a gel capable of regenerating damaged enamel.
An enamel of as good quality as the original
Made up of calcium and phosphate, the two building blocks of enamel, the gel was tested on damaged human teeth and removed from patients. After applying the gel to the enamel, the researchers left the teeth for 48 hours in containers created to mimic the environment of the mouth.
During this time, they could see that the gel had stimulated the growth of new enamel: looking at it under a microscope, they could see that this new enamel had the same arrangement of calcium and phosphate crystals as an ordinary enamel.
Limits to overcome
Their search, however, is not over. Indeed, although this new enamel coating is of equivalent quality to real enamel, it is 400 times thinner, not exceeding 3 micrometers in thickness. A difficulty that the researchers hope to circumvent by applying the gel several times to rebuild a sufficiently thick layer of enamel repair.
“Several other groups tried to repair tooth enamel with mixtures of calcium and phosphate, but they contained clusters of larger particles that did not stick well to the surface of the tooth,” explains Professor Ruikang Tang, author main work. “This made it difficult to reconstruct the enamel crystals.”
With his team, he is now testing the gel on mice and hopes to be able to experiment with it soon on human subjects. He will, however, need to ensure that the chemicals in the gel are safe, and above all “that new enamels can form in the real environment of the mouth, even when people eat and drink”.
.
