Descripción del proyecto
Perfilado de los microbios de la placa dental para luchar contra las enfermedades periimplantarias
Las enfermedades que afectan a los implantes dentales, como la periimplantitis, están causadas por las bacterias de la placa dental. Sin embargo, el perfilado de las comunidades microbianas que se encuentran en torno a los implantes dentales no forma parte de la atención sanitaria estándar. El objetivo fundamental del proyecto financiado con fondos europeos PB3P es desarrollar un producto para clínicas dentales que combine el perfilado metagenómico de alta resolución con métodos predictivos de aprendizaje automático. Este ayudará a delinear una firma microbiana reproducible para las enfermedades periimplantarias y a formular políticas de tratamiento para mantener el cuidado dental. Es importante destacar que la solución de PB3P tendrá en consideración la diversidad del microbioma de la placa con el fin de ofrecer un enfoque personalizado para las clínicas dentales.
Objetivo
Oral diseases are a global medical and socioeconomic burden. Diseases affecting dental implants (peri-implant mucositis and peri-implantitis) are particularly on the rise, and despite the plaque microbiome plays a crucial role in their etiology, the potential of profiling the microbial communities around implants for supporting implant care has not been exploited yet for clinical applications. The availability of metagenomic tools able to profile human microbiomes at unprecedented resolution developed within the ERC-StG MetaPG project and a pilot study we recently performed on the peri-implant microbiome are now enabling such tantalizing opportunity. In this PoC proposal, we aim to develop a product for dental clinics to provide clinically actionable indications for the prevention and treatment of peri-implant diseases by a combination of high-resolution strain-level metagenomic profiling and predictive machine learning methods. Such approach would overcome available clinical tests that are based on low-resolution molecular techniques that are inadequate at completely characterizing the plaque microbiome and do not offer a reliable support in the daily clinical practice to the dentists. By profiling and analysing 2,000 peri-implant microbiome samples collected from 50 dental clinics in the R&D phase, we aim to develop and validate a market-ready kit to (1) define a reproducible strain-level microbial signature for peri-implant diseases, (2) identify and characterize clinically relevant strain-level features of Fusobacterium nucleatum in mucositis, and (3) successfully support the clinical dental practice. Because inter-patient strain-level diversity of the plaque microbiome and of F. nucleatum in particular explains the variability in peri-implant health, our commercial proposition will provide the first microbiome-based and personalized approach for dental clinics.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantInstitución de acogida
38123 TRENTO
Italia
Organización definida por ella misma como pequeña y mediana empresa (pyme) en el momento de la firma del acuerdo de subvención.