Abstract
Dental ceramic material is one of the widely preferred restorative materials to mimic the natural tooth enamel surface. However, it has continuously been degraded because of low wear resistance during mastication in the oral cavity. The friction involved was reduced by introducing the lubricant saliva protein layers to improve the wear resistance of the dental materials. However, little is understood regarding how the protein–protein interactions (PPI) influence the adsorbed-state structures and lubricating behaviors of saliva proteins on the ceramic material surface. The objective of this study is to quantify the influences of PPI effects on the structural changes and corresponding oral lubrications of adsorbed α-amylase, one of the abundant proteins in the saliva, on the dental ceramic material with glass as a model surface. α-Amylase was first adsorbed to glass surface under varying protein solution concentrations to saturate the surface to vary the PPI effects over a wide range. The areal density of the adsorbed protein was measured as an indicator of the level of PPI effects within the layer, and these values were then correlated with the measurements of the adsorbed protein’s secondary structure and corresponding friction coefficient. The decreased friction coefficient value was an indicator of the lubricated surfaces with higher wear resistance. Our results indicate that PPI effects help stabilize the structure of α-amylase adsorbed on glass, and the correlation observed between the friction coefficient and the conformational state of adsorbed α-amylase was apparent. This study thus provides new molecular-level insights into how PPI influences the structure and lubricating behaviors of adsorbed protein, which is critical for the innovations of dental ceramic material designs with improved wear resistance.
Highlights
Human teeth are an essential facial aesthetic organ in the mouth [1], but the missing tooth problem is expected to grow over the two decades because of the aging population [2]
The objective of the present study is to investigate the influence of protein–protein interaction effects on the structural changes and similar lubricating behaviors of adsorbed α-amylase on the dental ceramic material with glass as a model material which is predominantly used in the production of dental ceramics. α-Amylase is one of the predominant (40–50%) protein in human saliva that hydrolyzes the α-1,4 linkages of starch, glycogen, and other polysaccharides to glucose and maltose [34,35,36,37,38]
We present an experimental approach to study the combined influence of protein–surface interactions and protein–protein interactions (PPI) effects on the conformational behavior and activity of adsorbed α-amylase on a glass surface, for a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the salivary lubrication performance
Summary
Human teeth are an essential facial aesthetic organ in the mouth [1], but the missing tooth problem is expected to grow over the two decades because of the aging population [2]. The wear resistance of artificial dental materials in the oral environment was found to be critical for successful dental restoration. In this regard, many recent studies have been carried out to understand the oral lubrication mechanisms involved during the mastication process. Many recent studies have been carried out to understand the oral lubrication mechanisms involved during the mastication process From these the frictional forces arising from contact of two surfaces was found to be reduced by bio-lubricant saliva within the oral environment [12]
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