Back to Search
Start Over
Breaking Biological Barriers with a Toothbrush
- Source :
- Journal of Dental Research. 86:769-774
- Publication Year :
- 2007
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2007.
-
Abstract
- Toothbrushing exposes epithelia and other tissues of the oral cavity to mechanical stress. Here, we investigated whether brushing induces cell wounding—plasma membrane disruption—in epithelial and other cell types in the oral cavity. Brushing of the gingivae and tongues of rats resulted in a striking increase in the number of cells positive for a marker of disruption injury. These cells included those in all strata of the gingival epithelium, and in the skeletal muscle of the tongue. Additionally, we found that brushing resulted in an increase in c-fos expression by junctional epithelial and skeletal muscle cells. Epithelial barrier function, however, was not overtly affected by brushing, despite the observed individual injuries to cells. We concluded that brushing disrupts cell plasma membrane barriers in the oral cavity and activates gene expression events that may lead to local adaptive changes in tissue architecture beneficial to gingival health.
- Subjects :
- Male
Toothbrushing
0301 basic medicine
Cell type
Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Muscle Fibers, Skeletal
Cell
Epithelial Attachment
Gingiva
Gene Expression
c-Fos
law.invention
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Tongue
law
Gene expression
medicine
Animals
General Dentistry
Microscopy, Confocal
biology
Cell Membrane
Skeletal muscle
Epithelial Cells
030206 dentistry
Gingival epithelium
Rats
030104 developmental biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
biology.protein
Toothbrush
Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15440591 and 00220345
- Volume :
- 86
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Dental Research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....90b73a02df339bfd8e8ef454643b80b1