COMPARISON OF SALIVARY ANTIBODY IgA TITRE TO STREPTOCOCCUS MUTANS BETWEEN THE CARIES-EXPERIENCED AND NON-EXPERIENCED GROUPS USING IMMUNO-SLOT BLOT METHOD

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J Korean Acad Pediatr Dent. 2002;29(3): 354-361.

음종혁, 정태성, 김신

부산대학교 치과대학 소아치과학교실

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to develop and establish rapid, convenient, and accurate method of analyzing salivary IgA against S. mutans semi-quantitatively. Relative salivary IgA titer was calculated as maximum dilution fold of S. mutans protein that was not detected by salivary antibody after measuring relative intensity of the immune blot bands by densitometry. Analyses were performed in caries-experienced and non-experienced children. Mean IgA titer of non-experienced group shows higher level than that of caries-experienced without statistical significance due to high individual variety of antibody titer in non-experienced group: 2^6.278±2.260 in non-experienced group and 2^5.730±0.499 in caries-experienced group(p=0.464). Those results suggest that naturally induced salivary IgA antibodies against S. mutans were present in all subjects, but high titer of antibodies were not achieved in caries-experienced group. On the contrary, antibody titer in non-experienced group shows marked individual variations suggesting that antibody production is multifactorial. In conclusion, immune-slot blot method developed in this study would be useful and applicable in semi-quantitative analysis of antibodies.

Keywords: Immune-slot blot method | Salivary IgA | Streptococcus mutans