Sometimes you get off work too late and fall asleep when you get home? This will make the uncleaned mouth a day a hotbed for many microorganisms to reproduce.
When you are lazy and don’t brush your teeth or do oral cleaning, bacteria may be the happiest. With the help of food residues left by teeth, they grow vigorously and secrete some metabolites that can destroy teeth. Over time, an caries was born.
But if things are just so simple, you should be glad!
The research team at the University of Pennsylvania unexpectedly discovered that bacteria not only act alone, but fungi that were originally unconnected will also participate in the destruction together. And bacteria and fungi are not competitive, but take joint action, they will form a larger organism pattern to destroy teeth together .
▲ Research has been published in "Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences "
When the researchers observed the caries of young children under a microscope, they found that bacteria and fungi form a cluster. This microbial cluster is no longer a scattered independent individual, but a whole, and they can move and spread on the teeth together.
microbial clusters can even do things that cannot be done in a single individual period.
mutant Streptococcus is a culprit that causes tooth decay, but it is usually still and restricted by saliva. However, the authors found that they can actually catch the ride-shaking of Candida albicans , a type of fungus that can extend a tentacle-like structure to move .
▲Super organism composed of bacteria and fungi (Picture source: Penn Dental Medicine)
. The mutant streptococci can reproduce while moving with Candida albicans, so a microbial mass becomes larger and larger. They found that bacteria can attach to any location of the fungus , including Candida albicans itself, or polysaccharides on the tentacles or even on the surface of Candida.
"No one has ever predicted that this will happen. It's like a super-organism pattern in which bad guys commit crimes," said Dr. Knut Drescher, a microbiologist at at the University of Basel. Usually, mutated streptococci also have tiny tentacles, but basically do not move. When appearing on Candida albicans, they have the ability to "jump" forward and combine with individuals farther apart.
▲The growth process of the entire fungal-bacterial cluster (Image source: Reference [2])
Drescher placed these super microbial clusters onto tooth-like materials and tracked them. The distance between these clusters moved by more than 40 microns per hour, which is comparable to the rate of movement of molecules that heal trauma in the human body. Within about a few hours of the two microorganisms joining into a clump, the authors observed that the initial bacteria had spanned more than 100 microns, more than 200 times their body length.
In addition to the wide range of movement, this complex cell clump is also very tough. Single bacteria can easily wash away from the teeth, while microbial mass is more likely to adhere to the teeth and is more resistant to toothbrushes and antibacterial agents. This means that once you relax your oral care and let the bacteria and fungi come together, it will be harder to remove them.
▲This super organism has stronger toughness (Image source: Reference [1])
This dynamic bacteria-fungal interaction will cause wider and severe damage to the surface of the enamel. If the mouth is cleaned from time to time, the chance of microbial clusters committing crimes will be greatly improved, and tooth decay is born.
Drescher pointed out that this super organism not only appears in the mouth, but also forms similar super organisms in other parts of the body, which may explain why some bacteria can spread rapidly.
Now, do you still dare to sleep without brushing your teeth?
Reference:
[1] Microbes Can Form 'Superorganisms' That Crawl Across Our Teeth. Retrieved October 14, 2022 from https://www.sciencealert.com/microbes-can-form-superorganisms-that-crawl-cross-our-teeth
[2] Interkingdom assembly in human saliva display group-level surface mobility and disease-promoting emergent functions. PNAS (2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209699119
