Dental caries and chemical warfare within the mouth.

To date, it appears that the dentists' war against dental caries has no end in sight due to the fact that dentists lack any genuine offensive firepower. Make no mistake, the defense has drastically improved as dentists have shifted the focus more toward the preventive aspects of dental care. But defense by itself cannot defeat the enemy; at best, it can maintain the status quo. In order to defeat the enemy, one must study and understand the enemy, to know its strengths and weaknesses, and to strike at those points of vulnerability. The aim of this research is to identify and characterize genes that are responsible for observed virulence factors in Streptococcus mutans, which is the primary pathogen involved in the development of dental caries. Once there is a more defined understanding of the many virulence factors of S. mutans, there will be a much more valuable insight into its role in the ecology of the oral cavity. Eventually, this knowledge could enable dentists to convert the bacterial "weaponry" into its own arsenal, which could then be innovatively employed as preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic agents to treat oral bacterial-related diseases.