Department of Pediatric Dentistry, School of Stomatology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
Med Hypotheses. 2011 Feb;76(2):244-5. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2010.10.009. Epub 2010 Oct 30.
Tobacco smoking is considered to be one of the major risk factors for periodontitis. Nicotine, the major component in tobacco smoke, has been considered playing an important role in tobacco-related morbidity by acting through the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) expressed by non-neuronal cells. Recently studies found that nAChRs could be expressed on oral gingival and periodontal tissues. We hypothesize that nicotine may act on periodontal tissues directly and specifically through nAChRs to affect periodontitis activity, and that nicotine-induced periodontitis could be prevented by tissue-selective nAChR inhibitors targeting periodontal nAChRs. Thus, periodontal nAChRs may provide to be novel molecular targets to treat smoking-related periodontitis, effectively blocking of periodontal nAChRs may offer an optimistic outlook for the therapy of smoking- related periodontitis.
吸烟被认为是牙周炎的主要危险因素之一。烟草烟雾中的主要成分尼古丁，通过作用于非神经元细胞表达的烟碱型乙酰胆碱受体（nAChRs），被认为在与烟草相关的发病率中发挥重要作用。最近的研究发现，nAChRs 可以在口腔牙龈和牙周组织上表达。我们假设尼古丁可能通过 nAChRs 直接且特异地作用于牙周组织，从而影响牙周炎的活动，并且组织选择性 nAChR 抑制剂可以靶向牙周 nAChRs 来预防尼古丁诱导的牙周炎。因此，牙周 nAChRs 可能成为治疗与吸烟有关的牙周炎的新的分子靶点，有效阻断牙周 nAChRs 可能为治疗与吸烟有关的牙周炎提供乐观前景。
