European pharmacists have developed a chewing gum that becomes bitter with inflammatory diseases of the oral cavity, turning the tongue into a diagnostic apparatus.

Today, dental implantation is a standard operation, but it is still associated with a number of complications. One of the most frequent and serious - mucositis and periimplantitis - inflammation of the soft tissues around the implant causing gradual destruction of the jaw bone. These diseases are difficult to treat, and therefore it is very important to diagnose them at an early stage. Previously, this was done using X-ray studies showing the degree of bone destruction. But now the situation will change.

This became possible thanks to the research of a team of pharmacists from Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Czech Republic. For diagnostics of peri-implant diseases, they decided to use the given nature by a sensor - the language. The main function of bitter taste is the determination of toxic substances in food. Therefore, the tongue is able to sense very small concentrations of bitter substances (up to 30-100 ppm). Inflammatory processes lead to the appearance in the oral cavity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), which have no taste. Accordingly, the task of researchers was to "teach" the language to recognize them.

For this, a tricky trick was used. Scientists synthesized substances whose molecules consisted of three parts. The first was the fragment responsible for the bitter taste, based on deatonium carboxylate (deatonium or bitrex is the most bitter substance used, in particular, for the denaturation of technical alcohol). The second is a microparticle that was connected to the deatonium by means of the third part - a peptide chain (PCL) cleaved by proteases. If there is no inflammatory process, the microparticle interferes with the perception of bitterness. But if MMP is present in the saliva, they cut the binding chain, the bitter fragment is released from the microparticle, the person feels a strong bitterness and beats the alarm.

Scientists have developed two generations of such substances. In the first after cutting PCL protease deatonium remained connected with the remainder of the chain, which made its taste less strong. In the second generation of substances, this residue was destroyed by aminopeptidases contained in the saliva, and bitterness became very strong. They also managed to make this effect finely tuned by creating a PCL that is cut with only a certain type of protease (for example, the so-called MMP-8), but not others.

The resulting substance was placed in a chewing gum, making the diagnosis convenient for patients. The effectiveness of the new technique was confirmed in a study involving people with peri-implant diseases and healthy volunteers with implants. Also, a comparison was made with two tests already used.

The authors of the study emphasize that the main advantage of the new methodology is its accessibility "to anyone, anywhere and anytime". Such a simplification of diagnostics will help to identify peri-implant diseases at an early stage, and therefore - and more effectively treat them.

nedug. en.

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