New Target for Gum Disease Treatment Found in Immune System

Periodontitis is a form of gum disease that damages the soft tissue and destroys the bone that supports your teeth. It's suffered by nearly half of adults in the U.S. and can also pose an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and other health problems.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania believe they have found a new target to treat this form of gum disease that they describe in their recently published study. This target is a component of one's immune system called "complement." In their experiments, the researchers treated monkeys with a complement inhibitor.

The third component of complement, otherwise known as C3, was the target for the researchers. C3 occupies a central position in signaling cascades that trigger inflammation and activation of the innate immune system. When the monkeys were treated with the complement inhibitor, it prevented inflammation and bone loss that is caused by periodontitis. These results could mean this treatment will be effective for humans.

"We think this drug offers a promising possibility for treating adults with periodontitis," said John Lambris, co-senior author of the study, in this UPenn news release. "Blocking C3 locally in the mouth helps shift the balance of bacteria, producing an overall beneficial effect."

The researchers were careful in their studies. They found that whatever treatment they would utilize would need to eliminate the inflammation altogether because the periodontitis bacterium, Porphyromonas gingivalis, feeds off of inflammation. If inflammation is present, the bacterium inhibits the ability of the immune cells to clear the infection and allow other bacteria to thrive as well.

As a result of the inhibitor's success, the researchers found a drug called Cp40, which is the C3 inhibitor in humans and tested it on the monkeys again. They found that it reduced inflammation and protected against bone loss. The findings of this research were a first, and the UPenn team hopes to further their studies and determine a practical application of the treatment on humans.

Their study, "Genetic and Intervention Studies Implicating Complement C3 as a Major Target for the Treatment of Periodontitis," was published in the Journal of Immunology.