and Anti-infective Potential of Thymol Against Early Childhood Caries Causing Dual Species and .

Early childhood caries (ECC), a severe form of caries due to cross-kingdom interaction of and , is a serious childhood dental disease that affects majority of the children with poor background. The present study investigated the anti-infective potential of thymol against and dual species for the management of ECC. Thymol, a plant derivative of the monoterpene group, has been well known for its numerous biological activities. Thymol at 300 μg/ml concentration completely arrested growth and proliferation of dual species of and Rapid killing efficacy of pathogens, within a span of 2 min, was observed in the time kill assay. In addition, at sub-inhibitory concentrations, thymol effectively diminished the biofilm formation and virulence of both and such as yeast-to-hyphal transition, hyphal-to-yeast transition, filamentation, and acidogenicity and acidurity, respectively, in single and dual species state. qPCR analysis was consistent with virulence assays. Also, through the invertebrate model system , toxicity and efficacy of the phytocompound was assessed, and it was found that no significant toxic effect was observed. Moreover, thymol was found to be proficient in diminishing the infection under single and dual state in condition. Overall, the results from the present study illustrate the anti-infective potential of thymol against the ECC-causing dual species, and , and the applicability of thymol in medicated dentifrice formulation