Caries immunoglobulin

A natural defence mechanism of the body against disease is the production of antibodies against bacteria. An antibody against oral bacteria, immunoglobulin A (IgA), is found in saliva. However, correlations between IgA levels to S mutans, the bacterium most closely associated with caries, and caries experience are inconsistent [106]. In his 1998 review of antimicrobial factors in saliva, Tenovuo concluded that naturally evoked salivary antibodies do not have enough power to influence caries development in adolescents and adults [107],... 

The salivary glands also secrete urea, which some oral bacteria convert to ammonia and carbon dioxide with an enzyme, urease. The greater content of ammonia results in the oral cavity being better buffered to acids and better protection from caries (Chap. 15, Sect. 3). Calcium and phosphate are also present in saliva at supersaturating concentrations but do not precipitate due to protein chelation. Whole saliva also contains small amounts of various other proteins proteases, protease inhibitors (cystatins), type IV carbonic anhydrase, statherin, histatins, lysozyme, salivary agglutinin, and immunoglobulin A. 

Similar systemic immunization experiments were carried out in monkeys. Monkeys fed candies and cookies and given water containing 2% sucrose developed many cavities after 3 4 years unless immunized with whole cells of. S. mutans. Various purified protein antigens given by subcutaneous vaccination induced a blood plasma immunoglobulin response that protected monkeys from caries, whereas the glucosyl transferases protected only if vaccination methods that promoted salivary IgA immunity Sect. 12.1.4 were used. 

Immunoglobulins have also been prepared in transgenic plants such as tobacco and corn (reviewed in Ref. 132). Indeed the first such plantibody to enter clinical trials was a secretory IgA molecule produced in transgenic tobacco directed to an antigen from Streptococcus mutans for the treatment of dental caries (133). The glycosylation of an antibody expressed in a plant will be substantially different from that resulting from production in mammalian cell culture. The... 

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