Poster Presenter

Xylitol For Prevention Of Dental Caries
Swati Misra, Pritesh Gupta,Shailendra Raghuwanshi,Kakoli Dutt & R. K. Saxena
India

Xylitol, a five carbon polyalcohol has attracted attention as a sugar substitute due to its potential in reducing the growth of Streptococcus mutans, a causative agent of dental caries.

In this respect, xylitol production from Debaromyces hansenii was process optimized by one variable at a time approach resulted in 57.34g/l of xylitol in presence of 100.0g/l of xylose in a 10L bioreactor. The xylitol (purified) was tested for its anticariogenic property on six different strains of Streptococcus, which were isolated from clinical samples on selective media and were exposed to different concentrations of xylitol as against Brain Heart Infusion Broth (Control) for 24h. The xylitol activity was examined for the zone of inhibition, bacterial growth pattern and lactic acid production. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) is 0.25% from different clinical samples. The LD50 and LD90 of the selected (sensitive to xylitol) clinical isolate B (6) is 5.0% and 10.0% xylitol respectively. The lactic acid production is 0.010g/l at 10% xylitol concentration. It was observed that higher concentration of Streptococcus mutans leads to elevated levels of caries which requires higher concentration of Xylitol. Therefore, xylitol (dosage) is an important as it plays an important role in reducing cariogenic bacteria.