Like many other people, I routinely feel slightly awkward when my dentist asks if I floss. It turns out this isn't just a dance move in Fortnite, but a sensible and effective oral hygiene technique. Now it seems that flossing may also provide a novel route for vaccine delivery. According to a new paper in Nature Biomedical Engineering, coating dental floss with immunogenic molecules can lead to a robust immune response (in mice). The idea was sparked by reports that the gingival sulcus is highly permeable to molecules, making it an attractive route to deliver proteins or mRNA.
In initial tests, delivering inactive flu virus to mice appears to have resulted in those mice developing immunity. And human trials suggest that the technique is - at least in principle - able to deliver molecules to the gum.
For those with an aversion to injections, flossing for vaccine delivery may prove to be a useful alternative. And, as your dentist would point out, flossing will also reduce the chances of requiring further injections in the course of a dental extraction. Perhaps next time I will listen more to my dentist!
To test this idea, Gill and Rohan Ingrole, first author of the paper and a chemical engineer at Texas Tech University, had to do something no scientist had done before: Try to floss a mouse.
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