“…On the other hand, studies on the effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles associated with glass ionomer cement (GIC) are scarce (Spencer, Campbell, Buschang, Cai, & Honeyman, 2009), although such data would be important. GIC is a restorative material that shows good chemical adhesion to the dental structure, releases fluorine (Cassanho et al, 2005;Weng, Guo, Gregory, & Xie, 2010), enables restoration of fluorine after topical applications, alters acid production and the electrolytic metabolism of cariogenic microorganisms, and promotes a decrease in the number of S. mutans and plaque bacteria after restoration (Chau, Pandit, Cai, Lee, & Jeon, 2015). The fluorine released by GIC can alter the ecosystem of the bacterial plaque and affect a variety of enzymatic functions that are vital for the bacterial cell, including inhibition of enolase, phosphatase, and pyrophosphatase, eventually leading to cell death (Chau et al, 2015;Duque, Negrini, Hebling, & Spolidorio, 2005;Hotwani, Thosar, Baliga, Bundale, & Sharma, 2013).…”