Bacteriophage Endolysins Antibacterial Effect against S. mutans Isolated from Dental Caries: An In-Vitro Study

Abstract

Background: Many bacterial infections including dental caries that caused by Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) were difficult to be treated due to the unavailability of effective antibiotics. Therefore, it requires to focus the attention on endolysin as an antibacterial agent. This study was designed to evaluate the In-vitro effectiveness of specific bacteriophage endolysins against S. mutans isolated from dental caries.Methods: Twenty-five isolates of S. mutans were collected from patients with dental caries attended to Al-Imamain Al-Kadhimain, Medical City Hospital, and AL-Ameen Health Center, during the period from December 2021 to May 2022. The S. mutans isolates were identified by culturing them on their specific mitis salivarius sucrose bacitracin tellurite media (MS-SBT agar), morphological characteristics, gram staining, biochemical tests and VITEK 2 compact system. Seven of these S. mutans isolates were used for the in-vitro study.Results: The bacteriophage endolysin enzyme extracted from the corresponding S. mutans isolate was effective as In-vitro antibacterial agent with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) ranging between (13.63 – 17.83) µg/ml and (17.04-22.28) µg/ml respectively.Conclusion: The endolysin was effective as antibacterial agent against multi-drug resistant (MDR) S. mutans upon growing and testing on culture media.