Antimicrobial Peptides from Streptococcus dentisani

Current project: 
 
SMILES: Streptococcus dentisani's Antimicrobial Peptides: New Strategy Against Oral Diseases of Microbial Origin. 
SMILES is a MSCA project at FISABIO with PI Ainhoa Revilla Guarinos. 

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101026278.
 
 

 

Past projects: 
 
This project was funded on year 2021 by a Grant for the Promotion of Research Activity of FISABIO - IV Call -. Project BactiDent UGP-20-108.
 
Objective:
Billions of people suffer from oral diseases world-wide while oral health treatments are not affordable for everyone. Goal 3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development challenge/priority programs, to be reached by 2030, is to promote “access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines [..] for all”. The WHO points therefore towards cost-effective oral disease prevention as a key strategy to reach a universal health care access. 
 
The Oral Microbiome Group discovered in 2013 the new bacterial species Streptococcus dentisani, which led to a patent and which we are developing as a probiotic against caries. S. dentisani is naturally found in oral disease-free individuals maintaining the balance for a healthy oral microbiota. It produces antimicrobial peptides (bacteriocins) with activity against some cariogenic pathogens. Furthermore, the bacterial supernatant is active against other oral and respiratory pathogens. This is of great interest since some of these bacteriocins could be developed for their industrial production and use as new antibiotics active against different infectious and oral diseases. The main scientific objective of SMILES is identifying, characterizing, and harnessing the antimicrobial peptides produced by Streptococcus dentisani and select cocktails with biomedical application in the treatment of caries and periodontitis. Caries and periodontitis are two oral diseases resulting from microbial dysbiosis. These cocktails could be incorporated in the future as additives in conventional oral hygiene products (ex. toothpaste), as oral disease preventive agents accessible for the public independently of their monetary resources.
 
Our research addresses the first steps for the applied development of these peptides: 
  1. Genomic identification of all S. dentisani peptides with their corresponding classification and secondary structure prediction.
  2. Production of these peptides by chemical synthesis and subsequent studies to determine their antimicrobial spectrum, i.e., activity studies against a battery of oral pathogens and multidrug-resistant infectious bacteria ("ESKAPE" microorganisms).
  3. Identification of cellular targets and mechanisms of action.
  4. Selection of the peptides with the best activity for different applications. 
The results of this research are fundamental for the development of these peptides for specific applications in the fields of biomedicine and oral health care products.

 

 

Participants:
Dr. Ainhoa Revilla-Guarinos, Dr. Ana Adrados Planell, Sandra Lahoz Oliva. 
 
Selected publications: 
  • López-López, A., Camelo-Castillo, A., Ferrer, M. D., Simon-Soro, Á., & Mira, A. (2017). Health-associated niche inhabitants as oral probiotics: the case of Streptococcus dentisani. Frontiers in microbiology, 8, 379.
  • López-Santacruz, H.D., López-López, A., Revilla-Guarinos, A., Camelo-Castillo, A., Esparza-Villalpando, V., Mira, A. & Aranda-Romo, S. (2021). Streptococcus dentisani is a common inhabitant of the oral microbiota worldwide and is found at higher levels in caries-free individuals.
  • Streptococcus dentisani sp. nov., a novel member of the mitis group. Camelo-Castillo A, Benítez-Páez A, Belda-Ferre P, Cabrera-Rubio R, Mira A. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2014 Jan;64(Pt 1):60-65.
  • Antimicrobial efficacy of the supernatant of Streptococcus dentisani against microorganisms implicated in root canal infections. Llena C, Almarche A, Mira A, López MA. J Oral Sci. 2019;61(1):184-194.