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Scardovia Wiggsiae Prevalence In Orthodontic Patients, Brandon Joseph Streiff Dec 2015

Scardovia Wiggsiae Prevalence In Orthodontic Patients, Brandon Joseph Streiff

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Dental caries has mainly been associated with Streptococcus, Lactobacillus, Actinomyces and Veillonella species. But in recent salivary studies a new cariogenic pathogen, has been identified. This new bacteria, Scardovia wiggsiae (SW), is currently being tested within the UNLV School of Dental Medicine patient population. Although these current studies are being conducted to study its prevalence in both pediatric and adult populations, it has not been evaluated among patients with an altered oral environment as seen in patients with orthodontic appliances. Fixed orthodontic appliances increase the difficulty of removing daily plaque on and in between the teeth with standard oral hygiene …


Novel Protective Salivary Peptides And The Chitosan Nanoparticles Delivery System, Flavia Zaidan Cardoso Salina Jul 2015

Novel Protective Salivary Peptides And The Chitosan Nanoparticles Delivery System, Flavia Zaidan Cardoso Salina

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As a result of its protein composition, saliva performs many essential functions that contribute to oral homeostasis. However, salivary proteins suffer quick degradation in the oral cavity, which decreases the protective potential of that fluid (Chapter 2). Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we evaluated the effect of our novel salivary peptides DR9, DR9-DR9, DR9-RR14 and RR14 on the crystallization of calcium oxalate (CaOx). All peptides containing DR9 showed significant inhibitory effect on the crystallization of CaOx, whereas RR14 showed no effect (Chapter 3). Next, we tested the adsorption behavior of our chitosan nanoparticles (CHNP) delivery system to hydroxyapatite (HA) surface …