Chemical Microrobots as Self-Propelled Microbrushes against Dental Biofilm

Abstract

Mouths offer the perfect environments for microbial cell formation, promoting the growth of biofilms, for example, on teeth. Dental biofilm exhibits strong resistance to antibiotics and is a cause of many dental diseases. Common strategies for dental biofilm removal involve the addition of high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), which increases tooth sensitivity, or mechanical procedures. Here, we report a different approach based on self-propelled micromachines with high antibacterial activity for the degradation of dental biofilm. Such microrobots use low concentrations of fuel for their propulsion, and they achieve an efficient dental biofilm disruption in only 5 min of treatment. Moreover, these microrobots are biocompatible with epidermal and organ cells and may stimulate the immune system to fight against microbial infection. This approach of exploiting the active motion of bubble-propelled catalytic micromachines for oral biofilm disruption may open the door for more efficient and sophisticated treatments in dentistry. The ability of catalytic microrobots to disrupt dental biofilm is demonstrated 95% killing efficiency is obtained after 5 min of treatment The biocompatibility of these microrobots with epidermal and organ cells is confirmed Autonomous self-propelled tubular microrobots based on titanium dioxide decorated with platinum nanoparticles were developed by Villa et al. for the degradation of dental biofilm strains. The killing ability of these micromachines is attributed to their antibacterial activity and the continuous generation of microbubbles at the biofilm surface.