No abstract

The generation of dental caries in humans is thought to be regulated by many intrinsic and social factors. In this study, we examined the effect of MHC on susceptibility to dental caries in mice. The mean carious score of BALB.K/Ola, a H-2 congenic strain in which the H-2 region derived from C3H/HeJ (H-2^k/k) is introduced into BALB/cJ (H-2^d/d), was markedly reduced as compared with that of its recipient strain (BALB/cJ). Mating experiments confirmed a strong genetic linkage between H-2 haplotype and caries susceptibility. These results demonstrate that one of the genetic factors of the susceptibility in the mouse is mapped within the H-2 region. This finding of a host genetic factor influencing the generation of dental caries will help in developing clinical preventive strategies.

In this study, we demonstrate that the localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance of metal nanoparticles, depending strictly on the generating wavelength of LSP resonance, can have both beneficial enhancement and harmful quenching effects on a triplet–triplet annihilation-based upconversion (TTA-UC) emission. When the LSP resonance band of anisotropic silver nanoprisms spectrally overlapped with the photoexcitation wavelength of a sensitizer and the fluorescence of an emitter, an increase in the photoexcitation efficiency and an acceleration of the radiative decay rate were respectively induced, resulting in an effective enhancement in the TTA-UC emission. Furthermore, the overlapping with the photoexcitation wavelength led to a significant decrease (93%) in the threshold light excitation intensity, which greatly enhances the figure-of-merit in TTA-UC systems. However, when the LSP resonance band overlapped with the phosphorescence band of the sensitizer, the TTA-UC emission was extremely quenched, accompanied by the enhanced phosphorescence and the decreased phosphorescence lifetime. These results suggest that the decrease in the TTA-UC emission is a result of the competition between the triplet–triplet energy transfer to the emitter and the LSP-induced nonradiative energy transfer to the silver nanoprisms from the triplet-excited sensitizer. This discovery of the conflicting effects of LSP resonance provides an important guideline: a precise adjustment of LSP resonance wavelengths is needed for the efficient enhancement of TTA-UC emission. This requirement is different from those of other fluorescence systems such as single downconverted fluorophores and lanthanide-based upconversion nanoparticles.

We studied dental caries susceptibility in various inbred mice strains infected with Streptococcus mutans and the inheritance pattern in the F₁ and the N₂ backcross animals. A high caries score was observed in four laboratory strains, BALB/cAJcl, C57BL/6NJcl, C57BL/10Slc and DBA/2NJcl. Three strains, C3H/HeNJcl, AKR/JSlc and CBA/JNCrj, showed less caries. Males of strain C57BL/10Slc (mean caries score = 112.2) and females of strain C3H/HeNJcl (mean caries score = 24.0) were chosen for examinations of the inheritance of the caries susceptibility. The mean caries score in (C57BL/10Slc×C3H/HeNJcl) F₁ hybrids was 98.4, demonstrating that F₁ progenies were susceptible. A number of N₂ mice were obtained by mating the F₁ male and the C3H/HeNJcl female. The caries scores of these N₂ male mice had an extensive range, from 14 to 194. Assuming that a caries score over 74 (median of the scores between C57BL/10Slc and C3H/HeNJcl) belonged to the highly caries-susceptible group, N₂ mice could be divided into groups with low or high caries susceptibility. Furthermore, the effect of nu/nu mutation on caries susceptibility in mice was also examined.