Innovative microbiological culturomics technologies for assessing the antimicrobial activity of periodontal antiseptics

Relevance. The treatment of periodontal diseases currently requires professional oral hygiene procedures involving various antiseptics used as mouth rinses and irrigants.

Objective. To provide an experimental and microbiological rationale for the use of domestically produced periodontal antiseptics and their combinations to enhance antimicrobial efficacy through the application of innovative microbiological culturomics technologies.

Materials and methods. To study the antimicrobial effects of antiseptics, an advanced RTS bioreactor (BioSan, Latvia) was employed. Unlike the previous RTS-1 monocultivator, the new model comprises eight integrated units. Each unit incorporates an innovative agitation mechanism for mixing microbial cultures, with digital data processing and real-time display. The following quaternary ammonium compound (QAC) antiseptics were tested: benzyldimethyl [3-(myristoylamino)propyl]ammonium chloride (Miramistin), benzalkonium chloride, and cetylpyridinium chloride, as well as chlorhexidine digluconate, used as the most common reference agent. The test strains included S. aureus ATCC 25993, E. faecalis, P. intermedia, F. necrophorum 89-5 (Federal Scientific Centre VIEV, FSC VIEV, Moscow, Russia), C. albicans ATCC 10231, and C. krusei Harvard ATCC 625.

Results. Miramistin demonstrated superior antimicrobial efficacy compared to other QAC antiseptics when analyzing microbial growth kinetics. Bacteriostatic effects were achieved at concentrations ranging from 0.012% to 0.05%, while bactericidal effects occurred within 0.05–0.10%. For fungal cultures, fungistatic activity was observed at 0.05–0.10% concentrations, and fungicidal activity at 0.1–0.2%.

Conclusion. Chlorhexidine showed slightly lower efficacy than Miramistin, particularly against fungal isolates, though it outperformed other QAC-based agents. Our findings indicate that QAC antiseptics – especially miramistin – have a milder impact on the composition of the oral microbiota than chlorhexidine.

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