Diarylureas: New Promising Small Molecules against Streptococcus mutans for the Treatment of Dental Caries
Domenico Iacopetta, Jessica Ceramella, Alessia Catalano, Assunta D’Amato, Graziantonio Lauria, Carmela Saturnino, Inmaculada Andreu, Pasquale Longo, Maria Stefania Sinicropi
Abstract
Dental caries is a biofilm-mediated disease that represents a worldwide oral health issue. Streptococcus mutans has been ascertained as the main cariogenic pathogen responsible for human dental caries, with a high ability to form biofilms, regulated by the quorum sensing. Diarylureas represent a class of organic compounds that show numerous biological activities, including the antimicrobial one. Two small molecules belonging to this class, specifically to diphenylureas, BPU (1,3-bis[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]urea) and DMTU (1,3-di-m-tolyl-urea), showed interesting results in studies regarding the antimicrobial activity against the cariogenic bacterium S. mutans. Since there are not many antimicrobials used for the prevention and treatment of caries, further studies on these two interesting compounds and other diarylureas against S. mutans may be useful to design new effective agents for the treatment of caries with generally low cytotoxicity.