Dental caries has always been an annoying chronic disease. Current approaches for treatment and detection have side effects and shortages. Especially, the cost of treatment is extremely high. Many people with dental caries do not go to the hospital for treatment.
SZPT-CHINA chose S.mutans as the treatment and detection target. Through synthetic biology methods, we have developed products that can inhibit the growth of S.mutans and detection systems for detecting S.mutans in vitro. In the end, we hope to reduce the prevalence of dental caries worldwide.
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Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising candidates for developing novel alternative antibiotics and have the advantages of good antibacterial activity, low cytotoxicity, and resistance to tolerance. Our screening results showed that TachyplesinⅠ(TP-1) had an excellent antibacterial effect on S.mutans. So, we developed biosynthetic TP-1 to kill S.mutans for preventing dental caries.
Click here to learn more.We believe that early detection is also the first step to prevent dental caries. Dental caries can be diagnosed by detecting S.mutans in oral cavity. Based on the quorum sensing signaling system of S.mutans , we constructed a synthetic E.coli detector to detect dental caries through naked-eye inspection.
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In order to create broader awareness about our dental caries prevention and detection technology, we visited hospital clinics,consulted experts and enterprises. We collected their suggestions and integrated them into our project.
Click here to learn more.To implement our project in the real world. We devloped a chewing gum that can prevent dental caries with expressed AMP or synthetic AMP probiotics. As the same time,we also developed an E.coli detect system corresponding detection devices to be used at community hospitals, small clinics, and even home for point-of-care testing (POCT).
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Our team fully complies with the safety rules of the iGEM competition. Furthermore, to avoid the leakage of bacteria to pullet the environment, a suicide mechanism regulated by the lysine riboswitch was adopted. In order to ensure the detection system’s safety, we also set the temperature to sterilize both E.coli and S.mutans.
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