universidade de são paulo - Faculdade de Odontologia - Unesp

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Candida adhesion to dentures, an essential step in biofilm formation and
development of denture stomatitis, may be influenced by saliva. This influence
may be regulated by specific interactions between the cellular adhesins and
receptors in the salivary pellicle 2,4,5 , as well as, by the action of salivary proteins
as a source of nutrients for microbiological growth 30 . On the other hand, these
proteins may also act by blocking the locations of adhesion originally present on
substrates 4,11 . It has also been observed that saliva may alter the surface
characteristics of the substrates involved in the adhesion process, such as
roughness and hydrophobicity 4,28,31,32 . Conversely, some authors have reported
that the original substratum surface properties may be transferred even through
the protein layer on the substratum surface and still influence microbial adhesion
4,28 . In spite of several studies that have investigated the influence of the salivary
pellicle in the adhesion process 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,21 , the role it plays is not
yet clear. The divergences found in the literature could be related to the different
methodologies, including the different periods of preconditioning with saliva 20 .
Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate whether different periods of
preconditioning with saliva would have an influence on the adhesion of Candida
albicans to a denture base acrylic resin using crystal violet staining and XTT
assay. To the author’s knowledge, to date this is the first study that has addressed
this issue.
Considering that surface roughness can influence the adhesion of Candida
albicans to the substrate 19,33,34,35 , the samples were made between glass slides in
order to obtain smooth, standardized surfaces. The results demonstrated that there