Talk:Dental Plaque Biofilms

Comment 1, by Anthony Alexander

I read your page on Dental Plaque Biofilms because I am interested in the dental profession and have been exposed to many of these subject areas as the son of two dentists. I found your project/page to be very interesting and informative about biofilm communication and formation. I found the information about the relationship between P. gingivalis and S. cristatus to be particularly interesting. Is there any insight as to how the prevention of P. gingivalis formation/development by S. cristatus is desirable for S. cristatus? My only concern about your page is that I feel as though it was directed towards a more educated audience, thus defining some of the terms you use my be helpful in clarifying the subject matter for a potentially less educated reader with regard to dental health. Again, I enjoyed the page and felt as though it was put together clearly and coherently. It was nice to see how you connected all the research areas together. I also enjoyed some of your facts in the introduction (average adult in USA has 10-17 decayed, filled or missing teeth) think of how high it is in other countries (scary). Good job.

J.T. Knight

I was very interested from the discussion in class about biofilms, so I was very happy to see that you did a page on dental plaque biofilms. It is amazing how many different microbes are present in the biofilm. What we are learning about anaerobic and aerobic environments applies to biofilms and from your page I can see why it is an important environment for scientists to observe. The communication aspect is fascinating especially how some signaling mechanisms between P. gingivalis and S. cristatus occur, preventing the colonization of P. gingivalis on the plaque biofilm. It seems very hard to preven biofilms on the teeth with all the microbes exposed to the area. Even proper hygien can't prevent everything. Does communication make it harder to develop antibiotics for plaque biofilm? Great page.