DETECTION OF BIOFILM FORMATION AND ANTIBIOFILM ACTIVITY OF MEDICINAL PLANTS ON DENTAL CARIOGENIC BACTERIA AND ITS IMPLICATION IN ORAL HYGIENE.

Dental caries, one of the globally affecting diseases of the oral cavity is still prevalent in today’s era despite knowledge of most advanced sciences and technologies in dental practice. There has been constant effort to focus on interception and correction of this disease entity but today our horizon has broadened the approach and goal remain to prevent the disease process rather than to correct it.Medicinal plants have been documented for prevention and cure of many systemic diseases since ancient times. With advancements in science and scientific procedures, it is now known that plants have apotential curative action for oral diseases such as dental caries. The usage of these herbal extracts in clinical practice can miraculously benefit the overall health of the patient.Medicinal plants are known to produce chemicals, which interferes with biofilm production. We have screened some of the medicinally important plants for its activity to inhibit the biofilm production. Inhibition of biofilm by natural inhibitors may lead to the development of new therapy in treating dental caries.Hexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol and methanol extracts of Morus alba, Citrus limon, Psidiumguajava ,Azadirachtaindica, Acacia niloticawere tested against dental caries causing bacteria which are isolated from caries of infected patients. Based on the biochemical analysis and partial sequencing of 16s rRNA 2 bacterial strains were identified, as follows: Bacillus cereus and Streptococcus constellatusfrom infected tooth sample.The sequences from selected caries bacteria (2 isolates) showed high degrees of similarity to those of the NCBI references strains (about 99%).