Metabolite from Tooth Decay Bacterium Curbs Yeast Oral Pathogen

Molecular Tooth Decay

Charles Darwin was intrigued with vestigial organs and, in fact, made them a part of his ‘‘long argument’’ for the existence of evolution in the natural world in Chapter 13 of On the Origin of Species. Now on the 150 anniversary of the publication of that seminal work, a study linking vestigial organs with molecular biology with paleontology has shown even more clearly how vestigial organs are ...

Silver microwires from treating tooth decay with silver diamine fluoride

1. Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, 1700 4th Street, QB3 Room 404, San Francisco, CA 94158 USA 2. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, 1700 4th Street, QB3 Room 404, San Francisco, CA 94158 USA 3. Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road MS 2-400, B...

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Fungal biofilm inhibitors from a human oral microbiome-derived bacterium.

The human mouth is home to a rich assortment of native and transient microorganisms. One of the commonly encountered bacterial species, Streptococcus mutans, was shown to generate the novel hybrid polyketide-nonribosomal peptide metabolite mutanobactin A (1). We have characterized three new analogues, mutanobactins B-D (2-4), and subjected these compounds to further biomedical evaluation. Metab...

Mutanobactin A from the human oral pathogen Streptococcus mutans is a cross-kingdom regulator of the yeast-mycelium transition.

The recent investigation of a gene cluster encoding for a hybrid PKS-NRPS metabolite in the oral pathogen Streptococcus mutans UA159 yielded evidence that this natural product might play an important role regulating a range of stress tolerance factors. We have now characterized the major compound generated from this gene cluster, mutanobactin A, and demonstrated that this secondary metabolite i...