The vaccines of the future will be added in a safer, effective and economic way, without the need for annoying bites. As? With simple interdental floss, treated to deposit the vaccine directly at the base of the gingival furrow, and thus stimulate the production of antibodies where it serves more: that is, in the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth, the main entrance point for viruses and bacteria direct within our body. It is the intriguing possibility that emerges from a study by researchers from the Texas Tech University of Lubbock, recently published on the pages of Nature Biomedical Engineering.
“The mucous membranes are extremely important, because they are the entrance door for pathogens such as the influence and Covid viruses,” explains Harvinder Singh Gill, biomedical engineer of Texas Tech University who participated in the research. “When administering an injective vaccine, however, antibodies are produced in the bloodstream through the whole body, but relatively few are produced in the mucous membranes”.
Administration vaccinations directly in the nose or mouth instead produces a powerful antibody production by the mucous membranes, and is therefore a strategy that increases the chances of neutralizing viruses and bacteria before they have an opportunity to infect us. And therefore to obtain sterilizing vaccines, which do not only defend from the worst consequences of infections, but also effectively prevent the transmission of the disease between person and person. An often desirable and difficult to reach goal, as we found ourselves discovering during the last pandemic.
There are already several options to administer vaccines in the mucous membranes of mouth and nose: spray vaccines that are sprayed in the nose, and oral formulation vaccines that are taken by sublingual way. But the problems with these technologies are not lacking: in the first case, the fact that the nasal mucosa is an inoculous site to be used with extreme caution, because it easily allows the access of brain drugs and can therefore cause serious toxicity; In the second, sublingual administration is often in an uncompromising antibody response.
This is where the interdental floss comes into play, with which you can have access to a very particular mucosa, hidden inside the gingival groove that contains our teeth. It is called the joint epithelium, and it is a subtle epithelial layer that surrounds the dental collar, specialized in order to release antibodies with which to contrast the bacteria, omnipresent in the oral cavity.
“The joint epithelium is much more permeable than the other epithelial tissues – underlines Gill – and it is a mucosa, and this offers unique opportunities to introduce vaccines in a way that utmost stimulates the production of antibodies in the body’s mucous layers”.
To test this possibility, Texan researchers have administered the same flu vaccine to mice, using three different ways: applied on dental floss, such as nasal spray and sublingual mode. “We have discovered that applying the vaccine through the joint epithelium produces a much greater antibody response in the mucous membranes, compared to the current standard Golden for vaccinations in the oral cavity, which provides for the application under the language”, reveals Rohan Ingrole, PhD student of Texas Tech University who participated in the research. “The interdental floss technique has also shown to provide flu protection comparable to what is obtained through nasal epithelium”.
Currently, the researchers tested the interdental floss technique with nasal formulation vaccine used in the experiment, and with three other of the main types of vaccine available: protein, with inactivated and RNA viruses. In all cases, they ensure that they have witnessed a strong production of antibodies. Obviously, further searches will be needed and the formulation of vaccines optimized for application through the joint epithelium before imagining a clinical use of this technique. For now, however, the results seem really encouraging.